


I got 99 problems and Medusa is all of them

by adulter_clavis



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, Gen, Horror movie style violence, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Minor Character Death, Occult, ResBang 2016, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 12:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 44,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9549227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adulter_clavis/pseuds/adulter_clavis
Summary: Resbang 2016 entry! Mean Girls/Jennifer's Body homage. Life is hard when your brother is a musical prodigy and your parents assume you're going to be following in his footsteps. It's a lot harder when you decide to leave all that behind and attend public school, especially when attending public school apparently involves insane drum majors, a principal no one has ever seen, a cutthroat social scene complete with actual murder, teenage girls who are literally possessed by demons, and some crazy blue-haired guy in heelys and shutter shades who's trying to make 'bode' happen.





	1. That girl is a problem

**Author's Note:**

> It was just going to be a Mean Girls AU. 
> 
> Then Some Stuff happened.

Soul was seventeen when he finally had his first day of school in the classic sense, and somehow he felt like all the kindergartners of the world facing separation from their parents for the first time were probably less nervous. He got up before his alarm went off because who slept, anyway, put on five different shirts before deciding that he really didn't care, and yanked on an objectively awful jacket in yellow and black that he'd owned for long enough that he was outgrowing it before stumbling out the front door still chewing on the remnants of his breakfast. The family car, a diesel Mercedes from the eighties that had by all accounts Seen Some Shit, coughed its way to life in the chill predawn and Soul kind of patted the steering wheel in understanding -- this wasn't exactly his idea of a great time, either.

That said, he reminded himself as he double checked his directions and backed out of the driveway, this was something he'd asked for, so he could only complain about being awake at six in the morning for so long before he started sounding like an ingrate.

By six thirty he was already at the high school, parked in one of the visitor spots like they'd told him to do until he was issued a parking pass, backpack hitched nervously up on one shoulder as he loitered near the giant Mercedes like he expected it to offer guidance. He was honestly ready to call the whole thing off and go back to his parents and his concertmaster brother and practicing full time for a piano career he didn't really want when someone materialized out of the early morning gloom, the strikes of their heavy boot heels rattling his ribcage as they got closer.

"Morning," said the girl once she was in earshot, poker-faced except for the easily discernible tinge of 'are you fucking kidding' in her eyes once she saw the way he'd arranged his backpack, or -- maybe it was the jacket, actually. "You're our new European music prodigy homeschooled transfer student?"

" _Wow_ ," Soul said before he could stop himself from being an embarrassment. "No. Not European, at least."

She shrugged and stuck out a perfunctory hand. "Doesn't really matter. I'm Maka."

"Soul," he said, taking her hand and trying not to be any more awkward than he already had been. Once they managed to get through the greeting ritual she let go and kind of leaned back, looked at him appraisingly, came to some kind of nebulous conclusion.

"I've been appointed as your guide, though I see it might actually be more like your bodyguard if you're gonna insist on dressing like _Saved By The Bell_ mugged you on the way to school," she said, ignoring the noise of wounded pride he couldn't keep himself from making. "At least wear your backpack like a sane person, you're going to warp your spine carrying textbooks around like that. I'm pretty sure that hasn't been cool since, like...2000."

"I'm not certain a girl wearing Halloween tights with combat boots has any room to be giving me fashion advice," he grumbled, but she just raised the world's most unimpressed eyebrow at him and _stood there_ until he scowled and shrugged his backpack on all the way.

"So," she said once Soul had checked that the car was locked for the tenth time and had finally run out of reasons not to let her lead him into the belly of the beast that was her high school. "We're going to go by the orchestra room first, because your parents were apparently _extremely_ insistent that the band and orchestra utilize your piano 'skills'," and Soul could _hear_ the quotes there, he didn't even need to see the incredibly rude air quotes gesture she utilized, didn't these kids learn manners in real-people school? "Anyway, as one of the marching band's drum majors I'm telling you right here and now that we have absolutely no use for a _keyboardist._ The orchestra can put you to work, though, so I guess your parents don't have to fly out here from Europe and yell at my father any more after all."

"I'm sorry," Soul said, managing to keep walking but definitely pausing in his wide-eyed perusal of his unfamiliar surroundings so he could give her a properly incredulous look, "my parents _what?_ "

"Don't tell me they didn't tell you about the band thing," Maka said, pulling one hand out of her battered leather jacket to check a watch clunky enough that Soul figured she could probably use it as a weapon.

"They," Soul began, then just shook his head and shrugged under the unfamiliar weight of his pack. "I guess I'm not surprised. What about them yelling at your father?"

"Oh, Papa is the vice principal," Maka said breezily, and held open a door for him. "Your parents have been...communicative."

The sigh that escaped him could have provided breath for an entire brass section. "Of course," he said, squinting against the searing glare of fluorescent lights off of old vinyl floor tiles and white hallway paint that accompanied his entry into whatever building they were walking into. "Well, I can definitely help out and -- wait, did you call me a _keyboardist?_ "

"Got a problem?" was her glib response, green eyes a gleaming dare to fight her, and Soul just shrugged again and sank his hands deeper in the pockets of his apparently hideous jacket.

They took a winding path to the center of the building that Soul really thought involved way too many turns to make any kind of sense, but it was an older school, he guessed -- years upon years of classroom rearrangements and renovations probably just had that effect. Certainly that was a more comforting theory than, say, the possibility that high school buildings were purposefully constructed to be as mazelike as possible so that students couldn't escape. Eventually Maka stopped at a heavy wooden door, wider than most of the others they'd passed, and opened it with an overdone flourish.

"I present to you: the orchestra," she said as he walked in, and Soul paused once he was clear of the door to take in racks upon racks of string instruments and what might have been the most battered upright piano he'd ever had the misfortune of seeing. Between him and the instruments was a sprawled mass of mostly-asleep teenagers, bookbags and bodies strewn in a kind of exhausted disarray that implied camaraderie more than anything -- and for the first time Soul felt really _alone_ , out of his element to a degree that he hadn't previously even been able to realize properly. He was pretty much certain that he'd never seen so many people his own age in one place before in a context that wasn't some kind of musical competition.

Something dark detached itself from the general vicinity of the piano and headed towards them before he could pursue that thought, resolving into a slim boy dressed in black head to toe from his Chucks -- made black with the help of a Sharpie marker if Soul was any judge -- to his worn jeans to his t-shirt, which looked just frayed enough to be the perfect level of soft. The only thing that disrupted the image was the white streaks in his -- black, of _course_ \-- hair, and the sheaf of dogeared music he'd tucked under one arm.

Well, that and the gleaming silver skull rings he wore on both middle fingers, what the hell was that about -- but there wasn't really time for that and Soul wasn't about to ask.

"Hey, Kid," Maka said. "I brought you your piano player. Try not to break him, he seems like he's in a delicate state."

Kid? -- what kind of name -- offered him an expression that Soul guessed met the bare minimum for being called friendly, and while Soul was still realizing that the other boy's eyes were apparently _yellow_ Kid was offering a handshake that Soul knew better than to refuse. Unlike Maka, his was firm but not -- well, hers hadn't been _crushing_ , but her fingers were callused in weird ways that he wasn't sure could be attributed to her status as a drum major and it had felt like she was one forgetful moment away from accidentally breaking his hand.

"Homeschooled, right?" Kid asked, and Soul was so glad to hear someone say the word without making it sound like a disease that he just nodded dumbly. "Should be all right, you'll just have to get used to the schedule and having to get permission to pee." He glanced over his shoulder at the room's other occupants while Soul was still gaping at his previous comment, and continued with, "We'll audition you later on. It's a little early for that kind of racket, I might have a riot on my hands if I have you start banging on the piano before the sun's all the way up."

"Sure," Soul said after a minute of trying to think of some other response. "Are you -- " and he trailed off again, unable to figure out how to ask his question without sounding like a weirdo.

Kid seemed to pick up on whatever Soul was failing to lay down, thankfully. "We have three levels of orchestra here," he said. "I'm the concertmaster for the most advanced one, and thus de facto concertmaster for the others when the situation calls for it."

"Got it," Soul said, because _concertmaster_ was a concept he understood intimately thanks to the fact that his brother was pretty much the concertmaster of the entire known universe. "So, uh -- I'll come back sometime later and look at your program, or did you have something specific in mind?"

"If it's not too much trouble, Maka can bring you back over here during lunch," he said, and glanced her way in inquiry.

"One, please stop calling yourself _concertmaster_ , Kid, it's tacky. You're first chair. You're a section leader. Let's dispense with the delusions of grandeur. Two, sure, why the hell not," Maka said, arms crossed and tone a bit sharper than perhaps Soul would have expected. "I didn't really need another lunch period of people trying to express their condolences, and I _definitely_ didn't need a lunch period of trying to explain to Soul how teenage social groups work."

"Well," Kid said, a kind of weird, droll smile spreading across his face, "there's really only one rule these days, right? _Don't go near Medusa Gorgon._ "

" _Medusa,_ " Maka spat, and Soul kind of flinched away from the sheer hatred in her voice. "That isn't even her real name and it's only been like _four months_ since she went insane and arbitrarily changed it, it's not like everyone _isn't aware_. You know someone tried to tell me the other day that she's actually a model? Someone _else_ said that she changed her name because she got _discovered_ , and soon we're going to be listening to her on the radio, soon we're gonna be seeing her on the _television_."

"I'd have predicted seeing her on a centerfold spread," Kid said, serene, and from somewhere across the room someone yelled "OH, BURN!" which whizzed so far over Soul's head that it was probably halfway to the moon by the time anyone else reacted.

"Oh, no," Maka said, pressing her face into one palm, and Soul turned his confused stare her way for approximately half a second before a howling blur darted across his vision and someone's arm hooked round his shoulders.

" _New kid!_ " yelled whoever was trying to put Soul and Maka in a chokehold simultaneously, and Soul nearly throttled himself trying to crane his neck far enough around to see just what the hell was going on.

"Keep it down, Star," Kid said, as close as he'd ever been to cracking a smile in the ten minutes Soul had known him. "It's early, and -- "

"Yeah, yeah, I'm not even supposed to be in here because I'm not part of your dork parade, I know," said the boy who'd accosted Soul, and finally released his quarry with the kind of laugh that just naturally deafened anyone in earshot.

"Soul," Maka said, straightening her jacket with a _snap_ of leather and an annoyed look, "this is Black Star. He's -- how do we know each other, again?"

"You fuckin' _wound_ me," Star said, looking anything but wounded, and rounded on Soul, one hand buried in the improbably bright blue of his hair and a blinding smile plastered across his tanned face. "My man! Welcome to the jungle, my name is Black Star and I'll be your benevolent deity for the duration. Please let Maka know if you require _anything,_ she is my most devoted priestess."

And then he was gone as quickly as he'd arrived, but not before giving Soul a wink and finger guns as he scooted backwards out the door.

"Classic," Kid said while Soul was still blinking in shock. "If you're wondering, he got in and out so fast thanks to the magic of heelys."

"What," Soul said, and gave Kid the kind of look he imagined a drowning man might.

"Shoes," Kid clarified, only looking _slightly_ condescending. "With wheels in the heels. Hence -- "

"Right," Soul said, because what else could he say to that? "And he's a total maniac because…?"

"Star used to play street hockey," Maka said, as though that should explain everything. "He quit over the summer for reasons he hasn't chosen to tell anyone, and the whole team is basically in mourning because he was their best player. We know each other because we kind of grew up together."

"Bonds formed on the playground run thicker than blood," Kid said, which had the intriguing effect of making Maka roll her eyes so hard that Soul half expected them to fall out.

"By the way," he said, the word 'mourning' having reminded him of something, "what were you talking about when you said you didn't need any more condolences?"

That made Maka's expression sort of -- shut down, rearrange itself into something carefully blank that wasn't actually anything like the expression she'd given him when they first met. "Oh," she said after a minute, when it was starting to look like Kid was trying to decide between patting her on the back and explaining for her, "you really _have_ been living under a rock, huh. Or you haven't been in town long."

"I, uh," Soul said, realizing as he spoke that teenage social norms probably dictated that he should be embarrassed about what he was about to say but he wasn't about to start _lying_ , "I've been here for a few weeks, but I've spent most of it watching _Buffy_."

" _Beautiful_ ," Kid intoned, and Maka gave Soul a look like he'd just admitted to something heinous.

"And _Teen Wolf,_ in the interest of full disclosure," Soul said after a few silent seconds. "Why, what happened?"

Maka cleared her throat with a bit more gusto than necessary. "The band director died about a week ago. He, ah -- it was a pretty bad accident."

Soul stared at her for a minute until Kid sidled into his space and elbowed him, muttered " _drum major_ " and things suddenly made more sense because, oh right, healthy teacher-student relationships exist.

" _Oh_ ," Soul said. "Oh."

" _Do not tell me you're sorry_ ," Maka snapped, so Soul bit back his condolences and resolved to never again try to comfort this girl lest she remove one of his limbs. After a moment Maka rolled her shoulders, let some of the tension drop, tried again. "Sorry," she said. "I appreciate the concern, but I'm fine. We all liked Mr. Galland a lot, and having him gone is -- rough. But I'm tired of listening to people tell me how sorry they are. You weren't even involved, just don't -- worry about it."

"Wouldn't be so bad," Kid added, sotto voce, "if Medusa could manage to act as though she cared in the slightest."

"Yeah, look," Maka said, sounding tired, "there are a thousand reasons why I'm trying to overthrow my ex BFF the senior drum major, we know that. I got ninety-nine problems and Medusa is _all of them_. Do we need to involve this poor innocent bystander?"

"He's already involved, he's working with us," Kid pointed out. "You wanna warn him, or would you rather let Medusa get her claws in him? He'd have about as much chance as a baby gazelle against a lion."

"That's awfully dramatic of you," Maka said, looking mostly just overworked. "Fine. Soul, don't talk to Medusa. Just do not do it. Walk away, do not engage. Got it?"

Soul rubbed his face a bit and looked past Kid at the other people in the room, all of whom were just straight up ignoring them in favor of things that were apparently more interesting, like sleep and guzzling caffeine. "Okay," he said, looking at Maka and then at Kid, who were both watching him -- one tired and a little put-upon, the other amused in a way that was actually kind of sinister. "Let me try to get this straight. The band does not require my services, the orchestra can put me to work, your daddy is the vice principal, and above all I should not under any circumstances speak to Medusa Gorgon."

"Do your best, anyway," Kid said, giving Maka a sidelong look. "She might be senior drum major, but after everything that happened this summer she's also the most popular girl in school complete with a posse, so it might be hard to avoid her."

"But don't let her win," Maka said, with an unsettling amount of fervor. "She will get her claws in you and she will _eat your heart_ , do not let her do it. She's a bitch and she's dangerous and she _betrayed me_ , we were _best friends and --_ " 

She cut herself off abruptly, and instead of continuing reached under her jacket and pulled free a necklace -- a little heart pendant with the letters 'BFF' inside it, and Soul grimaced with a kind of weird sympathetic awkward understanding.

"Got it," he said, and Maka tucked the necklace away, mouth set in a stubborn line.

"All right," Kid said, and this time he did put a hand on her shoulder, just for a second so that she gave him a look of annoyed acquiescence. "Let's see your schedule."

"Uh," Soul said helpfully, and Maka rolled her eyes before reaching into her pocket and producing said schedule.

"He's got bio first and then Latin," she said, looking him out of the corner of one eye. "I think they gave him some kind of music period around lunch." Again that look. "Are you really taking college-level calculus?"

Soul shrugged. "I mean, I already know most of the stuff I'm taking," he said. "My parents were pretty quick to figure out that with a solid twelve hours in the day I could spend half of it practicing and half of it doing schoolwork and still stay ahead. Why?"

She just shook her head while Kid kind of made a face that suggested that anyone else might be trying not to laugh. "Whatever. I'll be outside your classes to show you where to go, all right? Papa gave me a _hall pass_." This was said in tones of deep annoyance. Soul filed that away for later, that Maka's primary feelings regarding her father mostly seemed to be variants on exasperation.

Kid gave him a lopsided grin. "I should have your music ready by lunch period," he said, and gestured to the papers he still had tucked under one arm. "I was doing some markups when you came in, actually." He glanced at the room's clock and made a _tch_ kind of noise when the motion was punctuated by a bell. "And it's time for first period, so I'll have to see you later on. Just come straight here, even if your schedule says the band room -- Maka's made it quite clear how much use she has for a _piano player_."

Soul nodded, Maka stuck her tongue out at Kid, and they proceeded out the room's side door after a perilous few minutes spent navigating the obstacle course of sleepy students. She gave him a whirlwind explanation of the campus layout -- the building they'd just come from had all the music rooms in it and was more or less central on the campus was the main thing he got out of it -- and then walked him to his first class, and that was that.

Well, that was that until he was accosted by a blonde girl while he was still fidgeting near the door, trying to figure out where he was supposed to sit when everyone else seemed to be following some preexisting set of rules.

"You're the new kid, right?" she asked, one hand on his elbow and her eyes sympathetic, carefully-done makeup accenting her features to maximum effect and tight shirt showing off her cleavage without actually _showing off_ her cleavage where it was pressed against his left arm. "I'm sorry they gave you to _Maka,_ I would have made some time in my schedule to show you around if anyone had _told_ me that you were coming." She looked so put out that Soul was halfway to apologizing by the time she continued with, "Are you _okay?_ She kind of turned into a bit of a shrew over the summer, if you know what I mean. She hasn't just abandoned you to the losers in orchestra, has she? I _told_ her -- "

"What, no, it's fine, she's kind of high strung but she's not gonna _kill me_. And the orchestra kids seem fine," he added in a confused daze, wondering just what protocol was for having someone press their... _assets_ against you when you really weren't into it and kind of also wondering how much trouble he'd be in if he flat out ran away. 

"You're _such_ a good person for saying that," the girl said, expression sliding into something kind of faux-sincere, an expression Soul knew very well from having spent his life around performers. "Most people wouldn't be able to give her -- or _them_ \-- so much credit. What's your name?"

"Soul," he said, shrugging away from her grabby hands and trying to suppress the blush creeping up his neck in much the same way he was suppressing his urge to ask just who the hell she thought she was, anyway.

"Wow," she said, voice breathy, "that's so unique! I bet your parents are _awesome._ I'm Medusa, and I'm _sure_ Maka has told you about me, but you've got to understand that she's just upset that I'm so much more popular than she is all of a sudden so _of course_ she's trying to make me sound like a terrible person." She pouted up at him, lip gloss gleaming, and Soul had to remind himself how to take a full breath. "Please give me a chance, okay? I'd like to be friends."

"Yeah, sure," he said in desperation, praying it'd get her to back off a little -- mercifully it actually _did,_ and he was able to remember what it was like to breathe and function normally for a few seconds.

Until he was grabbed by another girl, anyway, though this one didn't invade his space any more than it took for her to put a hand on the arm that Medusa wasn't currently molesting -- and she might as well have been Medusa's polar opposite: nearly as tall as Soul, dark hair, dark eyes, no visible makeup, and a smile that was encouraging instead of hungry.

"Star told me to keep an eye on you," she said, quietly enough that Soul thought there was a pretty good chance that Medusa couldn't hear her.

"As entertaining as this has been," said an adult voice from the front of the room, "sit _down_ , children. Medusa, let that boy go, he doesn't deserve that kind of welcome on his first day." There was a pause, in which Soul redirected his horrified stare to the front of the class where a man in a patchwork lab coat was lounging behind a monstrosity of a desk, feet propped up and glasses as askew as his grin. "Everyone, this is Soul. He's new in town and he's not used to being around other kids, so try to act civilized. Tsubaki, do you mind?"

"Of course not, Mr. Stein," said the girl on his right, and Soul realized abruptly that Medusa had essentially vanished as soon as the teacher said her name and was currently giving him a sly little grin and a wave from the back of the class. "Over here," the girl added, giving him a gentle tug towards an empty lab table.

Soul let himself be led, set his pack down and took the seat next to the window when his keeper made it apparent that she was happy enough letting him have it.

"I'm Tsubaki," she said once he was settled, and in a startling turn of events did _not_ go in for a handshake. "And you're Soul, the new kid. How's it going?"

"It's -- I guess it's going as well as it can be. So," Soul said, still a little flushed from whatever the hell had just happened and trying to get his metaphorical feet back under him, "Black Star told you to _keep an eye on me?_ "

"He thought," Tsubaki said, eyes glinting with some kind of low-key amusement, "that someone might need to back you up when it came to not letting Medusa assimilate you, as it were."

"And he cares because?" Soul asked, and wished for the thousandth time that morning that he had the ability to think about the shit he was saying _before_ he said it.

That made Tsubaki laugh and give him a weird, kind of secretive look. "He would tell you that he was 'just ironically trying to help a bro out,' if that helps."

"It does not," Soul said, grimacing. "What does that even _mean_ ," and then Stein gave them a _look_ over his glasses and everyone shut up with impressive immediacy.

"Before I let you go back to jockeying for social standing via choosing lab partners," he said, removing his feet from his desk so he could stand properly, "I've been asked, as have the other teachers, to make an announcement. As I'm sure you all know, our band director was tragically killed in a car accident last week. I know it's considered cool to pretend like you don't care, but the fact remains that you can't opt out of -- what is it you all say? Feeling feelings?" He gave them a smile that Soul supposed might have been meant to be sympathetic but which was actually kind of terrifying. "If any of you need someone to talk to, Ms. Mjolnir's doors are always open, and I am obligated to remind you that visiting the counselor can be done anonymously in the event you have some kind of reputation to uphold. Yes, Miss Gorgon?"

"It's _Medusa_ ," Medusa snapped, then her voice wavered. "I just can't believe he's really gone, Mr. Stein. May I go to Ms. Mjolnir's?"

"She's good," Tsubaki murmured, then rolled her eyes at Soul's blank look while their teacher tried to explain that one couldn't simply wander into the counselor's office whenever one wanted without sounding cruel. "What, you think she means it?"

"Is there a reason why she wouldn't? I mean, she's the senior drum major, right? She would have been pretty close to him," Soul said, and Tsubaki smiled at him again.

"You're a nice boy," she said, and Soul frowned at her tone. "I guess I can't really blame you for not knowing how that girl operates these days, we're all still a little surprised about it ourselves. Trust me when I tell you -- she's just trying to manipulate everyone around her for sympathy points."

"That's...kind of mean," Soul replied, hesitant to use the word 'mean' as a descriptor for a girl he'd just met who seemed generally very nice, but it was the only word he could come up with.

Tsubaki shrugged and didn't seem upset, thankfully. "Medusa's gotten pretty mean, herself," she said, glancing back towards where Medusa was currently filing her nails, unconcerned for any grief she might have just been alluding to.

Soul followed her stare for a moment, finally commented, "Maybe that's just how she copes," and was interrupted by Stein calling the class to order before Tsubaki could respond.

===

Biology was uneventful, because Soul was pretty sure he knew everything on the syllabus already; all of his classes were uneventful, truthfully, because his parents had apparently been correct when they told him that he already knew everything that a high school could teach him. Maka collected him after every class, looking the perfect combination of slightly impatient and out of her mind with disbelief that Soul was even real as she escorted him from room to room. 

He decided against mentioning to her that he had class with Medusa on their little between-classes jaunts, at least for the time being, because the way he'd practically been able to see her blood pressure spike that morning made him hesitant to bring it up unnecessarily.

"I can only do this for a week," she said at the end of the day, heavily-booted foot tapping as she waited for him to fumble through his locker combination, and it was really only then, while he was reaching for his books, that Soul realized she barely cleared his _collarbones_ and he'd _still_ spent all day being intimidated in five minute bursts.

"I think I'll remember where I'm going after a week," he said, hefting his bio book and trying to remember if he needed it for homework or not, trying to remember which of his classes had class book sets so he could just drag all these bricks home and leave them there. "And you haven't even shown me where the band room is, so once I've learned my way around you don't have to make room in your busy schedule for me if that's what you want."

The boot tapping paused, and when Soul glanced her way she was staring at him with her mouth downturned just slightly, brows furrowing. "I didn't take you by the band room because I kind of wanted to spare you the experience of being assimilated by the marching band," she said after a few seconds, pulling her leather jacket back on seemingly just to give her hands something to do. "It's your first day of trying to be properly socialized, I figured just your classes would be more than enough to qualify as sensory overload without adding the _band_ to it."

Well, she wasn't wrong. Soul was _tired_ after a day spent trying to puzzle out the vagaries of teenage interactions and the public school system and just what the word 'basic' meant in whatever context his peers were apparently using it.

"Especially," she added while he was still thinking about that and trying to stuff books into his backpack, "since you aren't going to be working with us, anyway -- and the orchestra is completely insane, you'll need whatever mental fortitude you possess to deal with _them_."

He looked at her again, and now it was his turn to frown when she gave him a pointedly blank look in return. "It's not like you're abandoning me to be raised by wolves or something, I thought you and Kid were old friends," he said. " _I_ like him."

"You like him because he's willing to let you slack off and not practice a thousand hours a day," Maka replied, and apparently she _had_ been listening to their conversation during lunch while she'd been supposedly working on homework or marching routines or assassination plans or whatever it was ambitious drum majors did.

"No, I -- okay, that _helps_ ," Soul allowed, hauling his backpack zipper closed over all the books in it. "But regardless, I promise that the craziness I had to deal with when I was working with musical whiz kids back home means I can handle your _orchestra_."

Maka kind of shrugged, then stopped and narrowed her eyes at him as if unsure who exactly he'd just insulted the with the way he'd said the word _orchestra_. Soul gave her a sidelong look and shut his locker, decided against inquiring as to whether or not kids actually wallpapered their lockers in magazine clippings or not, and shouldered his backpack instead.

By the time he was done she'd opened her mouth as if to make some response and Soul was gearing up for some kind of battle -- if he'd learned anything today it was that teenagers were _volatile_ , man these kids liked to fight -- but they were, perhaps serendipitously, interrupted by her phone screaming --

"Is that the chorus from _Lucky Star_?"

" _Shut up,_ how do you even _know_ Madonna," Maka snapped, her cheeks and the tips of her ears flushing red where she'd pulled her hair back into a bun, and she fished her phone out of her pack with impressive speed so she could stop it from getting much further than 'star light, star bright'.

"Star I swear to god I will be out there in five fucking minutes, calm down -- _no,_ do _not_ join Tsubaki for cross country practice unless you're planning on running home or making Masamune drive you. I'm trying to make sure our poor lost lamb doesn't die, okay -- _no. NO._ Do not come help _me_ , either, I'm on my way."

Soul's eyebrows must have been nearly to his hairline by the time she hung up, made a hasty goodbye once she'd asked him about five more times if he knew where she he was parked, and -- well, Maka didn't seem the type to run away, but from his brief encounter that morning and Tsubaki's commentary, Soul didn't blame her for not wanting to leave Black Star unsupervised near her car or, presumably, the sports fields. So he just waved goodbye as she vanished around the corner as fast as she could without actually _running_ and meandered down the hallway, so focused on not running headfirst into anyone in the crush that he hardly even noticed the way everyone stared at him like he was some kind of anomaly. Maybe it was his hair. Surely rumors about the new kid couldn't have circulated across the _whole school_ already.

Except there was kind of a gaggle of assorted people trailing after him when he exited the building and took a hard left for the front parking lot. Soul was mostly certain that they weren't going to try anything, but he still wasn't really keen on being _followed_ , so he picked up the pace, rounded a corner, and nearly ran facefirst into a very broad brick wall that turned out to be a glowering football player, if the letter jacket left open over a hideously argyle sweater vest was any indication.

"Watch it," the guy growled, the buttons on his vest straining, and Soul took in aggressively spiked hair, broad shoulders, and a slant to the mouth that implied the baddest of attitudes before Medusa's laugh cut short any actual confrontation.

"Giriko, _calm down_ ," she said, the tone amused and undercut with a sense of _command_ that made Soul's skin prickle. "Soul, I wanted to introduce you to some of my friends, come here so you can meet them properly."

Giriko -- presumably -- gave him an annoyed sneer and turned back towards Medusa, who was actually _sitting on the hood of Soul's car_ , legs crossed and skirt short enough that Soul averted his eyes as soon as he realized, barely managing not to blurt out something like "isn't that against dress code?" somewhere around the time his eyes hit bare -- _muscular?_ \-- upper thigh.

"This _is_ your car, right? No one else here drives _anything_ like this," she said when Soul got a bit closer, grin widening when she saw the flush creeping across his cheeks. 

Soul shrugged, eyeing the other person standing too close to his car in favor of embarrassing himself by staring at Medusa any more: a tall blond guy who was thankfully neither as buff nor as obviously hostile as Giriko, though there was something in his pale blue eyes that made Soul's hair stand up, just a little. "Yeah, that's me."

"It's _great_ ," she said, flashing him a blinding smile that turned a bit cruel when she looked at Giriko. "So _vintage_. _Real_ vintage, not like that thing Giriko drives."

"Fuck off, witch," Giriko snapped, hands deep in the pockets of his jacket. "My SSR has a Corvette engine in it, it could smoke this heap."

"Giriko," Medusa said, her voice a kind of poisonous singsong, "you have _got_ to learn the difference between classy and straight-up masturbatory, _really._ "

Giriko huffed, looking like he wanted badly to just destroy something, and Soul edged a little closer to his car, debating whether or not it would be acceptable for him to drive off while Medusa was still molesting his hood.

"Anyway, Soul, this is Giriko, as I'm sure you've gathered," Medusa said, and Soul realized as she gestured that her nails were painted a very dramatic, silver-beglittered black. "He's the quarterback of our football team, he's very good. You probably don't know because you've never been to _real_ school, but he's kind of a big deal. The pro scouts are just _looking_ for a reason to scoop him up once he graduates." Her eyes flicked over to Giriko, who bared his teeth at her, sneering. "Can't imagine why he wouldn't take them up on an offer to get out of here, so you'd better make friends with him before he's famous."

"Nice to meet you," Soul managed, and through some miracle did not betray any hint of his unease when Giriko offered one huge, calloused hand to shake. Through another, probably more major, miracle, he also managed not to stare at Giriko's belt buckle, which looked like it was big enough to use as a dinner plate and said BAMF in letters so big they were borderline embarrassing.

"And this is Justin," Medusa said once they'd finished, motioning to the blond boy next to her, who removed his earbuds to offer Soul a slight nod and his hand without comment. "He's our tight end, which I'm sure means a lot if you follow football."

"Got it," Soul said, careful to keep his expression friendly and _very_ careful not to let on that he'd seen the way Medusa leered at Justin when she said the words 'tight end' -- or the way she'd threaded her fingers through the Mercedes emblem of his hood ornament in a way that made his stomach do something _super_ uncomfortable. "Uh, nice to meet both of you."

Medusa gave Giriko a look; he sighed, looked at Justin, who shrugged, and turned back to Soul. "Okay, bro," he said, managing to come across, for a wonder, as non-threatening, though Soul got the impression that it was a herculean effort. "Listen. You can't just hang around with the band losers, dude."

"Orchestra mostly, actually," Soul said, because he couldn't help himself when it came to making a fool of himself publicly, and Giriko sighed, eyes rolling and the set of his jaw very put-upon.

"You can go to class with them, you can even _play their music_ ," Giriko said, shooting Medusa a not entirely friendly look to which she responded with a twist of her hips and an I-own-you smirk, "but you cannot make them your _friends_ , that would be horrible. Give me your phone, we'll find you in the morning and make sure you're taken care of. You can eat lunch with us instead of having to deal with all those nerds."

Justin nodded off to the side, expression still largely unimpressed. "And we can get you caught up on the rules," he added.

"Uh," Soul said again, happy enough to look at Justin who, unlike Giriko, was not wearing cowboy boots and didn't look like he wanted to murder everyone near him, "the rules?"

"Don't worry about it for now," Justin said, tucking an earbud back into his right ear. "We'll fill you in tomorrow."

"Phone," Giriko repeated, and Soul was quick to hand it over, being uninterested in finding out what kind of persuasive methods Giriko liked to employ beyond the verbal. "Christ, what is this, a Razr? How did you even _get_ this, they've been old for like ten fuckin years."

" _Vintage,_ " Medusa repeated, one eyebrow pointedly raised, fingers still doing things to Soul's hood ornament that made him _deeply_ uneasy, and Giriko snorted at her while he punched numbers into Soul's antiquated -- vintage? -- phone.

"There," Giriko said after a minute, and returned Soul's phone to him unharmed, which he followed up with an entirely unexpected and slightly painful clap of his hand to Soul's shoulder. "You seem cool, man, let's hang out."

The smile that accompanied his proclamation would have been more at home in a shark's mouth, but Soul nodded anyway; it wasn't any weirder than most every _other_ teenage behavior he'd seen so far that day. Well -- maybe not including the crowd of high schoolers still clustered at the edges of their conversation, fidgeting and staring as though afraid to get too close to Medusa but too obsessed with her to actually get on the bus.

"All right, losers, I'm leaving," Medusa said, and Soul couldn't stop the confused face he made at the dichotomy between her tone and the words coming out of her mouth, because she sounded so _friendly_ and her smile looked so genuine. "Giriko, I'm going shopping, so you're going to have to find another ride."

A muscle in Giriko's jaw did something alarming and his hands balled into hard fists; Soul took a few judicious steps back and considered seriously just throwing himself into his car and getting the hell out before he ended up suspended just for being in proximity to a fight, and then --

"I got you, don't worry about her," Justin said from where he'd managed to fade into the background, and Giriko's rage was replaced whiplash-quick with a weird kind of tension across his shoulders and an expression that Soul didn't even try to decipher.

Instead he eyed the crowd while it parted to allow Medusa to stride unhindered through it, waved uncertainly when she paused at the edge to blow them a kiss, and then nearly jumped out of his skin when someone grabbed his arm.

" _Heeeeeeeeeey_ , new kid," said a girl, and Soul tore free of her grip on reflex, spun half around to face her before he remembered that no one here was actually going to attack him, weird social games aside.

"I'm outta here," Giriko announced before Soul could say anything to her; Justin gave him a negligent wave without even glancing his way and they left the same way Medusa had, the crowd parting around them without any prompting other than a sneer from Giriko.

"Um," Soul said, eyes returning to the girl in front of him when her grip on his arm tightened into something faintly threatening.

"Hi!" she said, smile not quite as convincing as Medusa's had been but nonetheless seemingly genuine. "I'm Eruka. Don't take Giriko seriously, he's just mad because Medusa has their car today."

Soul stared down at her, helplessly confused for the thousandth time that day. "Are they _related?_ "

"God no," Eruka said, and flipped bleach-silver hair over one shoulder. "Medusa's older sister married Giriko's father, so now they live together." She blinked dark eyes, shrugged. "Bit of a gold digger, you know? Giriko's family is _rich_."

"Oh," Soul said, and watched Giriko and Justin walk away. "So, uh -- how do _you_ know that?"

" _Everyone_ knows _that,_ " she said, and waved a hand dismissively, the glossy black of her nail polish glinting in the afternoon light and thin black bracelets clattering on her wrist with the movement. "But _I_ know _everything_. That's why Medusa and I are such good friends. Unlike _Maka_ , who she was only friends with because her father is the vice principal. _Honestly_. Why does she think Medusa actually _liked_ her? _So_ basic."

"I don't think that word means what you think it means," Soul said before he could think things through fully, and was rewarded with an unamused glare just in time for another girl to show up, the crowd making room for her but not exactly _parting_ like it had for Medusa.

"Eruka," said the girl, her pink hair the exact shade of bubblegum and her voice roughly as sweet, "I really _do_ think they were actually friends. It's just that sometimes people wake up one day and realize that they could be doing so much _more_ with their lives, you know? Medusa is an _inspiration."_

"Shut _up_ ," Eruka said, rolling her eyes. "Realizing that you're a loser doesn't make you _inspirational_ , it makes you a _loser_. It's obvious that Medusa was just using her until I came along and she realized she could do better."

"I'm gonna go," Soul said, hoping they wouldn't catch on to the fact that he was very much afraid he'd never make it home if he let them keep talking. "It was nice meeting you, Eruka."

"And Mizune!" The pink-haired girl chirped, and offered him a wave and a disarming smile. "See you tomorrow!"

"Yeah," Soul said, and had never in his entire life been so glad to climb into his desperately uncool car.


	2. On Wednesdays we wear pink

Soul repeated the process of getting up and stumbling to the car at the last second the next morning, except he'd spent the night before reacquainting himself with the contents of the house and so he had more than just the clothes he'd brought with him to choose from. Mostly what that meant was that he got dressed in a hurry, having spent too much time in the shower and trying to convince himself to eat breakfast, and grabbed the first shirt he put his hands on along with Wes's old leather jacket before hustling out to the Mercedes. He parked in the same spot he'd taken the day before and grabbed his schedule, tried to remember how to get to his first class from where he was sitting; the sooner he stopped making Maka show him around, the sooner he could stop feeling so damned guilty about it and maybe the sooner she'd stop looking at him like he was the actual worst.

He was, in fact, still peering at the slip of paper when someone knocked on his window and he nearly had a heart attack before realizing that it was just a girl and not Maka come to kill him or drag him to class by the scruff of his neck.

"Hi?" he said, rolling down the window, a laborious undertaking in the September chill because his car was so old and crotchety that not even the windows wanted to work right when it was cold out. Or _ever_.

"Hi!" the girl chirped, and Soul realized with a sinking feeling that there was a whole crowd behind her; that he hadn't gotten to school as early as the day before and so there were plenty of people around to corner him, not that he could come up with a reason why they'd _want_ to, unless him being new was somehow a big deal.

Well. He didn't get it, and the girl was just standing there _waiting,_ so Soul grabbed his backpack and climbed out of the car, found himself smothered almost immediately in an avalanche of curious teenagers, of glitter and overdone perfume and _questions._

"Are you really from Europe?"

"Is Medusa your friend?"

"Are you here to make sure that Medusa and Maka make up -- seriously, OTP, _right?_ "

"Are you Medusa's secret model boyfriend _from Europe?_ "

That last provoked some chaotic yelling, a reshuffling of the crowd seemingly from pure excitement, and Soul found himself pressed against the side of the Mercedes, feeling distinctly unsafe.

"No, I just -- "

"Oooh, he's _denying it_ ," someone said, and Soul edged right towards the sidewalk, debating whether or not trying to swing his backpack into place would get them to leave him some room or not.

The girl who'd tapped on his window was still at the forefront, and leaned in close, smelling of strawberries and bloodthirst. "Everybody knows," she said confidentially from a few inches away. "Medusa doesn't make time after school to talk to just _anybody_. Eruka and Mizune don't hang around to talk to just _anybody_. You can tell us, don't _worry._ "

Soul scrabbled right a little more, smacked his ankle into the curb, and tried to wriggle away to no avail. 

"Come _oooooon_ ," the girl said, following him as he tried to get away. " _Tell_ us, you don't have to keep your love secret."

"I don't -- "

" _NEW KID!_ "

The teenagers surrounding him scattered with frankly alarming speed, leaving Soul pressed against the side of his car at an awkward angle, craning his neck to find the source of both the deafening yell and the rumble of plastic wheels on concrete. Problem was, he couldn't see anything out of the ordinary aside from the backs of his fleeing peers -- 

" _YO_ ," someone screeched from _directly behind him_ , and Soul whipped around so fast he almost eviscerated himself on his sideview mirror just in time to see Black Star _slide across his hood_ like he thought he was some kind of fucking _rock star_ , all blinding grin and finger guns to the max as he landed next to Soul. "What be the _haps_ , my bro? Your patron deity has once again arrived in the nick of time to save you from the mob."

"Oh my god what is _happening_ at this school," Soul said, struggling not to just let himself fall over in agony from the no-doubt sizeable hole in his guts the mirror had left and equally struggling not to stare at Black Star's bright pink, gold star-bedazzled hoodie.

Black Star skated around him in a half circle, smarmy grin not undercut in the slightest by the gargantuan mirrored aviators he was wearing and hands firmly in his pockets because he was obviously _way_ too awesome to need his arms for balance, before coming to rest against the rear door of the Mercedes, arms crossed over his chest.

" _Buddy_ ," he said, pale brows hilariously high over his sunglasses. "Heard you made friends with _Giriko._ Heard that _Medusa_ is apparently interested in _hanging out_. You got any idea what you're getting into, here?"

"I -- " Soul started, and was interrupted by Black Star holding up a hand and making a series of almost insulting _shush_ noises.

"Listen, I think Maka might want to talk to you about this," he said, grin still unflagging like he was half a second from bursting into hysterical laughter at any moment. "And maybe not the way you're thinking. _But!_ What you're gonna need, if you're gonna hang around with the likes of Giriko and Medusa, is these."

And, before Soul could even find the synapses to ask him what the hell he was even talking about, Black Star pulled off his aviators and set them squarely on Soul's nose.

" _What,_ " he said, because -- _because_.

"My man," Black Star said, the picture of smug benevolence. "Okay. First of all, I've seen kids like you get eaten alive before, and you're going to need something to hide the fact that you are: one, clueless, and two, at a later date, that your soul is literally dying every time anyone speaks. Don't look at me like that. It'll happen. I speak from experience and I won't tolerate that naive _look_ you're giving me like you think you know better than I do what's going on here." There was a pause; Star's eyes traveled down and then back up and he cocked an eyebrow. "Also, you need _something_ to counteract that New Kids On The Block shirt, because otherwise you're flat out going to _die_ unless Medusa decides it's _vintage_ enough to be _cool_ \-- because that's a call she gets to make now, I guess. What happened to her being a nerdlord extraordinaire like Maka I just don't know, bro, but those were better days." 

The verbal wall of text that Black Star had just blindsided him with must have actually processed somewhere in Soul's overloaded brain, because he felt his face scrunch up in confused realization and didn't think a whole lot before he said, "So she was your friend too, then?"

The smugness and the smirk faded a bit into something vaguely somber; Star's shoulders dropped, settled against the car, and his wheeled feet finally stilled. "Not like she was Maka's," he said, mouth pulling into something thin, something dissatisfied. "But yeah, she was. We all moved to this weird little town as kids, didn't fit in so we hung out with each other like it was us against the world because -- " He shrugged. "Just because, I guess. We still kind of do it. But my point here is that we have no idea why Medusa ditched us, even after a few months, and someone who'd do that with no warning and no regret is someone you shouldn't trust." The grin returned with blinding speed. "Got it, peon?"

Soul made a face. "Yeah, sure," he said, because while Star had a point Soul wasn't sure he was really into being called 'peon' and couldn't decide on the fly how to discourage that behavior.

"For serious," Star said, looking, indeed, quite serious, which was unsettling -- for about ten seconds, anyway, which was when his eyes fixed on something behind Soul and he shoved himself away from the car with a cheeky grin and a wave. " _Giriko!_ How's it going, boo?!"

"Fuck off," said the football player in question, striding towards them with murder in his gait and a fight in the set of his jaw. "And take that tacky-ass girly hoodie with you."

Soul tensed, because fighting words were fighting words after all, but Star just cackled at megaphone volume and clapped Soul on the back hard enough to send him scooting gleefully away, blowing Giriko a kiss as he went.

"Little fucker," Giriko grumbled, but did not pursue, opting instead to stop a little closer to Soul than he was sure he was comfortable with, broad shoulders straining the seams of his letter jacket as if it somehow hadn't been fitted properly as he stared down at Soul. "So, new kid. Maka's lame, Stein's lame, come hang out with me for first period instead and I'll ignore that awful shirt you're wearing. Nice _sunglasses_ , by the way."

"It's my _second day_ , I can't _skip class,_ " Soul said, unable to come up with anything resembling a witty retort in the face of a very buff and presumably very angry football player who seemingly wanted to be his friend and thus falling back on the same 'just say no to drugs' training that every teenager got.

"Are you _kidding me_ ," Giriko snapped. "Do you know how much of an _honor_ it is that I've decided that I like you and want to show you where I go to skip class? You're not going to be cool _or_ popular if you hang out with Maka and Kid, I can tell you that. Now come on. The teachers barely know you exist, let alone where you're supposed to be at any given moment. Let's go."

"My parents -- " Soul said, and Giriko cut him off by simultaneously grabbing his arm so he could haul him down the sidewalk and _growling_.

"Do you always hate fun this much or is today special?" Soul stumbled and flailed a little but Giriko was inexorably strong, like he wrestled bears as a warmup routine or something, and after a few minutes of being dragged wholesale Soul found his balance and graduated to only being very forcibly _steered_ in whatever direction Giriko wanted. "Your parents can't do shit, right, they're in _Europe_ with your fancy-ass brother. School calls them, they call you, nobody can _do_ anything but talk at you so long as you don't do something idiotic like commit murder."

They were already away from the buses and the student parking, rounding the far side of the building that marked the edge of the school's campus before it gave way to the track field and tennis courts. There was a chill and a quiet to the air here, undisturbed by the chaos that was high schoolers, and Soul might have enjoyed it if he'd been in _any_ situation other than the one he was currently in.

"Okay, yeah, you have a point about my parents," he said, yanking his arm out of Giriko's iron grip once he'd accepted the horrible bruises he was going to have later, "but _Maka_ \-- "

"Keep moving," Giriko growled, giving Soul a thump between the shoulderblades that knocked the air out of his lungs in lieu of grabbing him again. "I get the impression you have this idea that Maka's somethin' of a goody two shoes," he continued once he'd made sure Soul wasn't going to bolt. "You'd be wrong. She ain't gonna turn you in to her daddy. Know what you _oughta_ do? Text her. Tell her not to wait for you till next period. There, problem solved. Now _come on,_ we don't have a lot of time to get out of here _._ "

Giriko grabbed his arm again and Soul didn't fight back, partly because he had a lot of questions -- how did Giriko know that, why wasn't he even wearing a backpack, why was he so weirdly invested in this little 'bonding experience' -- but mostly because he was frantically trying to fish his phone out of his pocket and text Maka. The Razr wasn't exactly _fast_ about that, especially since Soul wasn't used to it, but the horrible grimace Giriko pulled when he glanced down and saw Soul laboriously trying to navigate T9 texting made it almost worth it.

But only almost. Pretty much the moment Maka got the text, while Giriko was pulling him upstream against all the students still trickling onto school grounds and towards the overgrown old road that formed the school's far back border, his phone went positively _berserk_.

"Oh my _god_ ," Giriko snarled while Soul was still flinching from the text barrage, because anything Maka knew was apparently picked up on and commented on by Kid and Black Star _immediately_. "That is the _worst_ text alert noise I have _ever heard_ , why do you _have_ that godforsaken antique of a fuckin' phone -- "

"Shut the fuck _up_ ," yelled an annoyed voice, sleep-thick and almost as full of murderous intent as Giriko seemed to be on the regular.

Soul stopped trying to write everyone he knew apologetic texts just in time to see Giriko's mouth shut with a sudden and presumably painful click; his eyes scooted forward towards the source of the sound and he caught sight of Justin Law, short hair sleep-exploded, head stuck out the back window of a Chevy Blazer so old Soul considered it a museum piece and looking rather like he wanted to remove Giriko's head from his body.

" _Sorry,_ " Giriko said once they got a little closer, and to Soul's surprise actually sounded like he might mean it. Certainly his voice had dropped in volume if not intensity, which Soul decided to count as one of the small blessings he should be extra thankful for.

"Yeah, sure," Justin said, the bags under his eyes practically cavernous as he put down the back hatch of the Blazer so they could get in. "I see you decided to kidnap the new kid."

Giriko's only response to that was a shrug as he climbed in and threw himself down beside one of the wheel wells, yawning in the surprisingly dark interior of the truck and moving so automatically to accommodate the low roof that Soul had to assume -- and filed away for later -- that he must do this a lot.

Justin looked at Giriko, head cocked; Giriko stared back, jaw set; Soul paused halfway through pulling himself up onto the truckbed hatch and looked nervous, had to consider the fact that he might be killed by angry football players before Maka had the chance, hoped that the aviators Star had given him hid some of his extremely obvious terror.

"Ugh, get in, you're fine, even if those sunglasses are stupid as hell," Justin said, and where Giriko would have probably growled at him Justin just sounded irritated, so very _over it_. "If Medusa made sure we met you, Giriko has a point, I guess. Too bad for you I need some fuckin' _sleep,_ so social hour is gonna have to wait."

Soul got in. "Thanks?" he offered, taking off his pack and settling carefully against the wheel well opposite Giriko, very deliberately leaving plenty of space for Justin to settle into the back corner of the bed where there was already a pile of old blankets along with what Soul had to assume were Justin and Giriko's backpacks. "I, uh -- "

He was saved from terrifying small talk by another voice calling to them from somewhere down the street, followed shortly by a blond boy whose bright green eyes were much, _much_ too bright and eager for the time of morning.

"Hiro," Giriko snapped before the kid could say anything, "get outta here."

"Sure thing," the boy said, staring at Soul with interest so blatant that Soul, despite himself, felt like the best response might be some kind of male posturing, a threat of violence or -- something. "I was planning on going to check out if any of the hot band girls are upset enough about their director to make out with me. Anyway, I brought you breakfast, I'll leave it here. See you at practice!"

He was gone as quick as that, a bag of chicken biscuits steaming on the tailgate the only sign he'd even _been there_ in the first place.

"So," Giriko said, grabbing the bag and passing a half-awake Justin a biscuit that he accepted with a mostly-incoherent grumble, "that's Hiro. He's a freshman on the JV team. He's got _ambitions_ , by which I mean he's a suckup. Annoying as hell, but at least it comes with perks."

Justin roused himself enough to eat, emerging partway from his blanket nest and looking, if possible, even _more_ exhausted. "He's good, at least admit _that_ ," he said into his food, and Giriko snorted.

"Ain't nobody here as good as _me_ ," he said, with such an impressive level of arrogance that he didn't even have to straighten out of his slouch to come off as blindingly full of himself. "Sure, he's fast, but he's still too small to make the cut. We'll see once he manages to grow a little bit. And maybe once he grows out of those disgraceful-ass plaid skinny jeans."

That made Justin laugh around his breakfast. "Like you ever _grow out of_ skinny jeans," he said, mouth curled up in a hard smirk, and Giriko's laugh rattled the Blazer's windows.

Soul caught himself snickering -- the pants had been an _eyesore_ and if that was what passed for fashion he had no hope of being any kind of cool -- and that brought Giriko's attention back around to him.

"So," he said, and tossed Soul another biscuit, "before you ask, we're hanging out because Medusa thinks we should be friends, and normally when she says that sort of shit I try to talk to people when she's not around, which means I have to do bullshit like this because she is _always around_ at school _and_ she practically stalks me."

"Uh," Soul said, and chewed through a bit of chicken biscuit. "Why would she stalk you?"

Justin made a noise that was half snort and half laughter. "She doesn't _stalk_ him, they _live together,"_ he said, and Giriko made an infuriated sound while Soul tried not to choke.

"Fuck _off_ , go to _sleep_ already, I know your shitty family kept you up -- " and then he clammed up, a vague flush in his cheeks, and Soul tried to shrink into the side of the Blazer and eat his food as unobtrusively as possible.

"S'alright," Justin said, balling up the foil wrapper from his biscuit and throwing it at Giriko. "Wasn't anything in particular, just noise. By all means, explain your family situation to our new friend."

"Eruka, uh," Soul started, coming up short when Giriko glowered at him and swallowing hard in an attempt to relocate his courage. "Eruka said something about that, actually?"

"Oh, great," Giriko said, arms crossed, sprawled against the side of the truck in a way that nonetheless came off as imminently threatening. " _Eruka_ told you something. Look. Medusa has an older sister, Arachne. She's twenty-two, she's a gold digger, and she used her tits to talk my father into marrying her, so now it turns out we live together because Medusa would rather live in my nice-ass house than her family's nasty-ass trailer, to no one's surprise."

"Can't blame her for _that_ ," Justin muttered, and Giriko sighed.

"I don't blame her for that," he said, slouching forward a little. "I blame her for _everything else_. She and her insane sister are really making my life hell, you know."

" _Your_ life," Justin said, rolling his eyes from his blanket nest.

"Hey, at least you don't have to study and do all your homework at ass o'clock in the morning in the back of a _truck_ ," Giriko grumbled.

"Buddy," Justin said, burrowing back into his blankets, "I'd love to, if it meant I got away from my _family_."

Giriko sighed again, so heavily that Soul was a little surprised that it didn't shake the truck, and grabbed his pack so he could hunt for the textbook he wanted. "Yeah, you right," he said, sounding nearly as tired as Justin looked. "Sorry. Again. I just hate calc."

Soul's ears all but perked up. _This_ he understood, at least. "You're taking calc?"

"Yeah, and that's a secret you will _die with_ ," Giriko muttered, eyes deathly over the calc book he'd dragged out of his pack. 

"Uh," Soul said. "You do _go to class,_ right,I'm sure that people know you're in there and everything."

Justin shifted in the corner, yanked his blankets up over his head, and made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snicker. "Yeah, I go to class sometimes," Giriko said, shifting his death glare Justin's way for a few seconds. "But nobody _talks_ about it. They know better. And now _you_ know better, right? Better than to imply I'm some kind of _nerd_ like Ox or Kid."

"Oh, yeah, for sure," Soul said immediately, glad that some tiny shred of his sense of self preservation seemed to be intact. "I only asked because I figured that if you needed a hand with any of it I could definitely help." He couldn't really hide the lopsided grin that tugged at his mouth, a little proud and a little rueful. "My parents are kinda -- " and he made a hand gesture that could have meant anything from _strict_ to _cannibals_ \-- "and anyway, I've already learned all the calculus they teach in high school, so. I could help."

Giriko looked him, head tilted a little, eyes narrow. Soul swallowed, remembered that he was holding a chicken biscuit, and took a bite just to give himself something to do that wasn't get into a staring contest with a guy who could pile drive him without breaking a sweat. Reminded himself, half in desperation, that there was really no way that Giriko could be any more of a violent, overbearing diva than a concert master violinist, anyway.

"Hn," Giriko grumbled at length, glancing down at his book and then making a horrified face at Justin when a kitten purr of a snore emanated from his mass of blankets. "It's only the second day, so I don't think I need you to show me the difference 'tween my ass and a teakettle just yet. Maybe later, though."

"Just let me know," Soul said, grinning in relief, something he guessed might have been adrenaline making his skin prickle as he tried to take a deep breath and settle his heart rate. Giriko grunted a reply and leaned further into his slouch, raised calc book a solid barrier between them, and Soul took the opportunity to pull out his phone and try to actually _read_ the slew of texts he'd initially gotten and was actually _still getting_ somehow.

God there were _so many_. They began as Soul had expected: with Maka trying to tell him in increasingly firm tones that he couldn't skip class and that he especially couldn't skip class _with Giriko_ , what the hell was wrong with him. That had apparently been when she tapped in Kid, who texted him with admirable diction and a lot less overt outrage that it was 'inadvisable' to associate with the likes of the school's star quarterback and even less advisable to skip class on his second day, particularly given his unique appearance.

And then at some point Black Star had been told or stolen someone's phone or something, because Soul had started getting texts from a number he didn't know that were such an indecipherable mess of song lyrics, weird abbreviations, entire paragraphs of emoji, and bad AOL text lingo that hadn't been in style for ten years that it really couldn't _be_ anyone else. Deciphering it made Soul's brain feel like it was trying to escape through his eyes, so after a few minutes he gave up and did his best to get the general idea from Kid and Maka's responses, which were such a hilarious timeline of increasing exasperation that Soul couldn't even be annoyed.

The gist of it all, as best he could discern, was that Maka paradoxically wanted him to -- actually _keep hanging out with Giriko?_ He squinted at the text chain. Someone somewhere had pointed out that if they had an agent on the inside -- that _had_ to have been Black Star -- they could get some good blackmail material on Medusa at _least_ and maybe the football team to boot, which had been Kid's thoughtful addition to Star's all-caps plan to overthrow Medusa.

And Maka had -- agreed? Soul's head hurt. Admittedly he'd only known her for a day but he'd never in a thousand million years have anticipated this particular turn of events, though he guessed, in hindsight, that she _had_ seemed pretty hellbent on a hostile takeover of the marching band.

He gave up and snapped the phone shut. "Hey, Giriko," he said, a little hesitant but -- well, Giriko seemed surly and violent but not completely _unreasonable_ , per se. "Is, uh -- is this what you guy always do when you skip class? Homework? That's kinda -- " and he allowed himself another vague hand gesture instead of finishing because the look Giriko was giving him over his textbook was a clear warning.

"Right, because the _football players_ are too stupid to take anything but jock-level classes, right? They put us in a special class all to ourselves so we can finger paint while you do smart kid work?" He actually turned his head and _spat_ out the side window of the Blazer, which made Soul jump a little, nervous suddenly that he'd provoked something dangerous in a confined space because Giriko was sort of _bristling,_ the corded muscle in his shoulders straining against his letter jacket, voice booming off the truck's metal walls. "You fuckin' _smart kids,_ you think -- "

" _Shut UP,"_ Justin growled from his blanket pile, and shuffled around until he could free his head enough to glare Giriko into silence whereupon he immediately re-buried himself.

Giriko scowled but the tension in him lessened _just slightly_ , enough for Soul to breathe again. "Look," he said, voice still half growl, "a lot of the guys on the team _are_ like that. They play football and get C's and don't give a fuck and I guess that's fine for them. But I want out of here and much as everyone seems to think I'm stupid or took too many blows to the head in practice, I know it's gonna take a little more than just being good at fuckin' football."

"You're definitely not wrong," Soul replied, and exhaled in silent relief when Giriko's response was a surly grunt of agreement and the resumption of his studying.

===

"But his family's _loaded_ ," Black Star said hours later at lunch, cramming an entire Twinkie into his mouth hard on the heels of the end of the sentence. "Fuck's he on about?"

"Have you _met_ Arachne? He's not going to be inheriting _anything_ from a girl so classy she changed her name to _Arachne_ just in case her black widow intentions weren't crystal clear." Maka was the picture of screaming tension masquerading as calm, something Soul had very quickly realized when she'd accosted him as soon as lunch started, divested him of his aviators with the kind of scintillating disdain Soul had previously thought existed only in overblown fiction, and bodily dragged him to 'her' cafeteria table like the unwanted baggage Soul was pretty sure she viewed him as. "Who cares about Giriko anyway, he's a douche but the rest of the team's way worse. What I want to know is whether or not you think you can get me info about _Medusa._ "

"I care about Giriko," Kid said from the other side of the table. "The football team's a bunch of -- of." He took a deep breath, Black Star whipped out his phone, fingers flying to unlock it and start recording, and Maka gave her old friend a deeply amused look.

"Go on, get it out of your system," she said, and Soul edged away from her a little because her lopsided smirk was bloodthirsty and that was -- unsettling.

"No," Kid said, recovering his composure, nerves showing only in the way he started checking the buttons of his shirt. "I'm not giving you the satisfaction, not today. The fact of the matter is, the football team is a damned menace, and I refuse to waste my time and energy and risk potential suspension on anything less than the king idiot himself, since if Giriko tells them to shut up and leave us all alone they'll actually listen to him, unlike their coach."

"Lame," Star said, pocketing his phone again and stealing Kid's pudding cup.

"So you want me to get you blackmail material on basically everyone I just met who isn't you," Soul summarized before some kind of fight could break out over what seemed to be literal years of passive-aggressive attrition between the three of them.

"Plus, and I think this is the most important thing," Star added, "it'll be _hilarious_. You in?"

Maka and Kid were both looking at him the same way, with a kind of half-starved, determined hope in their eyes, and it was _weird_ getting that from two people at the same time, weird and a bit heart-wrenching if he wasere being honest. It wasn't like it was hard to empathize with wanting your traitorous ex-friend to get hers, or with wanting to put a stop to consistent harassment. That was, after all, exactly the kind of thing he watched TV for. It was what made _Teen Wolf_ so _relatable,_ to say _nothing_ of _Buffy._

Also, there was Black Star's supposed hilarity involved, he guessed, so -- "Yeah, I guess? What do you actually want me to _do?_ "

"Ruin her," Maka snapped, and Kid raised an eyebrow. Her chin tilted up, defiant, but she took a deep breath and dialed the murderous tendencies back a few notches. "No, never mind, that's what _I_ intend to do. You just need to hang out with them and report back to us. Maybe you can diplomatically talk Giriko into not letting the entire team treat every 'nerdy' kid in school like lower life forms, miracles have happened. If you can't, though, just get us something we can use against them."

"Fair warning," Kid said, eyes flicking away from Soul so he could watch Black Star's epic struggle with the seal on his ill-gotten pudding cup with a kind of bored schadenfreude, "you're probably going to have to act like you don't like us much to keep them willing to hang out with you, at least in Medusa's case. I'm not sure Giriko gives a single flying fuck about concepts like social standing so long as you -- hmm -- stroke his ego appropriately, shall we say?"

"Yeah, okay," Star said, and reached across Kid to steal his spork so he could just stab the pudding cup open, "what he's trying to say is that if you want them to think you're their friend? You have to actually _act like you want to be their friend_. Not complicated. No _stroking_ involved. Just smile and nod."

"Please never say those words again," Maka said, face as horrified as Soul felt. "And _never_ about Giriko. Please. I don't even care that you're right, just _don't_. I treasure what little sleep I get."

"I got it," Soul said before Black Star could do more than grin around a giant mouthful of pudding.

Kid gave him a slanted almost-smile, pale eyes obliquely amused. "In that case, your target may be viewed in her natural habitat over yonder," he said, and pointed towards a table across the cafeteria from them, prime real estate beside both the windows and the exit, well-positioned for grabbing food and well away from the unwashed masses. "As you can see, her court of admirers is fairly extensive, but since she took the time out of her busy schedule to molest your car, I'm certain she'll make room for you if you join her -- especially if you mention that you ditched _us_ for the honor."

Not five seconds after Soul turned to follow the direction Kid had pointed in, Medusa caught sight of them looking her way and blew Soul a kiss, an indecent gleam in her eye all too visible even at maximum range as she followed up with a wink.

"You know she hardly even does any work any more," Maka said, looking more than ready to launch herself across the lunchroom and engage in a duel to the death. "She just comes to practice and leads. Doesn't help with the routines, doesn't organize anything, doesn't even _talk_ to me, just lets me do all the goddamn work and acts like it's all her _right_ , like she _earned it,_ I _swear_ I'm going to fucking -- "

"Easy, darlin'," drawled a thick bass, and Soul nearly jumped clean out of his skin when Giriko's hand clapped down on his shoulder. "Those ain't very ladylike words. Anyway, Justin and I need to borrow your boytoy here, so if you'll excuse us we'll just be on our way."

Kid's spine straightened nearly as quickly as Maka's head whipped around, and for a few heartstopping moments Soul could see, clearly, that he was about to be at ground zero for a throwdown that wouldn't end until tables and skulls were broken with equal impunity.

" _But what if I told you_ ," Black Star said, artfully shattering the entire tableau before nascent violence could become actual violence, "that the boy was mine?"

Giriko's hand tightened on Soul's shoulder until he was certain he heard his bones creak; he couldn't _see_ Giriko, who was behind him, but he could see Justin -- and Justin looked wary, like his fight or flight reflex was having a screaming meltdown. From this Soul deduced that Giriko probably got his way more or less all the time, thanks no doubt to the fact that he was more or less just a solid wall of muscle and undiluted wrath. 

"Find some chill, chief," Star said after a moment, expression and body language so relaxed that Giriko's perpetual rage seemed absurd in comparison. "How about this, I'll arm wrestle you for him."

" _What,_ " Giriko snarled, and Soul bit down a yelp when the hand on his shoulder somehow managed to grip even harder. "You don't own him, that's stupid. Come on, Soul. Let's go."

"You don't own him either, scooter," Star said just as Giriko was turning to leave and Soul was halfway out of his seat, earning him a deer in headlights look from Soul, the sound of Kid's face hitting his palm, and a glare from Giriko that could have cracked crystal. "Whatever, he'll go with you or he won't, that's up to him. I still say we get this gun show on the road."

The flexing that followed seemed to more than make up Giriko's mind for him, and while Justin was still busy making faces that Soul assumed translated to something along the lines of 'I hate everyone and long for the peace of total oblivion,' Giriko threw himself into the seat across from Black Star and slammed his elbow down on the table.

"Bring it, you fuckin' hockey dropout," he snarled, and Black Star threw his head back and cackled, the sound of their hands crashing together thunderous even in the noisy lunchroom.

"Count us down, baby," Star crooned to Justin, which earned him bared teeth and a desultory countdown while Star made a lot of unnecessary eye contact with Giriko and let his grin widen to the point of being unnerving, at least from where Soul was standing.

Then Justin hit zero and Soul must have blinked too slow, because Star did something, a weird twisting pull of a motion, and Giriko's arm plowed into the table with enough force that every tray on the table jumped and clattered, leaving Maka defensively grabbing for her soda and Kid rolling his eyes skyward.

"Now that we've established who's boss, you can go," Star said after a few seconds, letting go of Giriko and leaning back in his chair, hands tucked behind his head and grin the definition of shit-eating. He didn't even need the aviators to give the impression of wearing them, the distinct aura of being so much cooler than everyone around him that they were lucky he'd decided to grace them with his presence, and the way Giriko looked at him as he stood up made Soul's hair stand on end a little.

"One day you're gonna pick the wrong fight, star boy," he said in a low growl, and Soul hardly had time to wave goodbye as he was unceremoniously grabbed and dragged out of the cafeteria.

===

Thus began a span of days that Soul could only call Legitimately A Weird Time: Giriko and Justin took him down to the football field, which was apparently where a sizeable percentage of the team ate lunch, and in front of the assembled team and -- Soul assumed -- god, pronounced him a 'Bearglove,' which he understood only marginally better when he was handed a stick of Old Spice deodorant in the selfsame scent.

"It's like the Harry Potter houses, but not as dumb," was Giriko's explanation once they'd extricated themselves from Hiro and the rest of the team and found a quiet place in the bleachers to finally eat. "I'm Lionpride myself, but Beargloves are good people. They're fighters, but they're hard to provoke. Suits you."

"Hawkridge here," Justin said, Giriko nodding along as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, and then proceeded to spend the rest of lunch explaining all five scents and their attendant characteristics until Soul's brain more or less gave up entirely. Thankfully he'd put Star's aviators back on as soon as Giriko had pulled him outside, and the team as a whole seemed to approve enough that he'd been able to keep them on without guilt. As a bonus, Soul was learning rapidly that not having his eyes visible was a huge plus when every conversation he had seemed determined to outdo the one before it in terms of absurdity.

Such as: Medusa, reclining somehow on her lab stool, phone in hand and popping gum while Soul did their lab work because Tsubaki had somehow been too slow to claim him when Stein told them to partner up, commenting, "I'm tweeting this. Do you know I have nearly as many Twitter followers as Kanye? In the time it took me to tell you that I got _seventeen_ mentions. I am straight up internet _royalty_ and you should be honored that I allow you to be associated with me. I could make you a famous musician with _one tweet_."

Maka, the next day: "There are days I think she's some kind of witch, _honestly_."

Soul was still trying to decide if she was serious when Kid, very obviously serious, countered with, "There are days when I think she's _possessed_ ," and Soul decided that discretion was the better part of valor and just nodded as if that statement actually made some kind of sense.

And then Black Star, towards the end of Soul's second week, furiously tapping along on his phone as he skated idle circles around Soul and Maka as they walked to class: "I'm developing an app. Top secret." He was wearing shutter shades to replace the aviators he'd insisted Soul keep, the aviators that were the only thing preserving his tenuous grasp on sanity and safety in a world where keeping a straight face was an olympic event that Soul felt woefully underprepared for. "One day I'll be rich and famous, and you'll be able to say you knew me back in the day and be honest to god hipsters just like you always wanted."

The end of his second week also saw him in the school counselor's office, fidgeting in confusion and more than slightly unsettled because he hadn't really expected the guidance counselor to have an eyepatch -- or to ask him if he knew any good synonyms for _turgid_ before finally looking up from her typing and giving him a sunny smile.

"This is just a formality, no reason to look so nervous," she said. "I'm Ms. Mjolnir. We're just checking in to make sure that you're adjusting all right, and from what I've heard you're doing just fine. Has Maka helped you get used to how things work around here?"

"Oh, absolutely," Soul said, sweating metaphorical bullets because obviously he couldn't wear the aviators in here and maintaining this kind of facade was nerve-wracking when facing down an authority figure. He wasn't _lying,_ but he also couldn't pretend even to himself that Maka explaining to him that Medusa Gorgon was the actual antichrist and convincing him to help her overthrow her ex-BFF was really what anyone meant by 'helping him get settled.'

"Perfect! And you haven't been too lost without your family, have you? We have a lot of students who transfer here and it can be very tough, I know."

That earned her a slow, surprised blink. His family? Soul had talked to his parents, of course, but he did his best to keep those calls short -- not because he didn't like his parents, but because talking to them about every detail of everything he did was exhausting and made him feel like he was somehow failing a test that had begun as soon as he'd expressed a desire to do something besides pursue his musical career. As to his brother, well. Wes had made sure to tell him that he was welcome to any of the clothes in his closet, along with anything _else_ \-- insert horrible, soul-destroying lascivious wink here -- that he might dig up in there, or out from under his brother's old bed, or, and this was the one that kept him up at night, whatever he might find if he looked in a certain spot on the underside of the baby grand in the library.

Soul spent most of his time in the living room, bundled up in old quilts on an equally ancient overstuffed leather couch, doing homework and catching up on a lifetime's worth of television.

"It's a little weird being on my own," he said instead of any of that. "But it's fine. I know how to cook and do laundry and everything."

That seemed to be the response Ms. Mjolnir was looking for, because she gave him another one of those summer smiles and released him back into the wild without any further pointed questions, whereupon Giriko promptly found him and asked him a _very_ pointed question to the tune of "It's cool if we come over and hang out after the game tonight, right?"

This was how Soul ended up with two very tired football players in his house late that Friday night, tense but not unduly so despite Maka and Kid's repeated admonitions to _take notes and get them something useful_. So far, his association with Giriko and Medusa had yielded nothing like the kind of information Maka wanted, just petty things that might be good for future blackmail but nothing _incriminating._ Kid was pleased enough with that, though, and they both seemed entertained at least -- Black Star basically laughed nonstop through Soul's renditions of what he picked up hanging around 'the enemy' -- but Maka's burning _need_ to take Medusa down was starting to itch at Soul's brain.

Except Medusa didn't come over with Giriko, which Soul found surprising considering how up in his grill she tended to be during the week, clinging to his arm and giving Maka the kind of smiles that made Soul wonder how the school didn't straight up burn down. It was _extra_ surprising considering that Medusa had been the one who'd made _Soul_ go to the football game, a sport he knew nothing about and would otherwise never have paid any attention to regardless of the fact that he was apparently befriending the star players, but then again she _had_ disappeared well before the end of the game.

"Nah, she's out on some kind of pity date with Hiro, and if we're lucky she'll do us a favor and toss him off a cliff," Giriko said when Soul inquired, trudging through the door and into the living room, head tilting back to take in the high ceilings, the dark exposed wood beams, the ancient and welcoming leather couches that flanked a shiny new entertainment setup. "Nice place. You said your folks're letting you live here by yourself?"

Soul shrugged and tried to find some way of explaining his family situation that didn't sound weird or take ten years, but was interrupted by Justin, who pushed past them, pizza boxes in hand, and headed straight for the kitchen.

"Have you been living off of hot pockets and pizza rolls?" he asked once he got there, running a hand along the gleaming expanse of the granite countertops as he peered into the cabinets and then the fridge.

"Would you believe me if I told you I didn't know what hot pockets _were_ until I moved back here," Soul replied, heading into the kitchen after Justin so he could get his hands on the pizzas. "Who wouldn't live on them, they're _delicious._ "

Justin gave him a weird profile stare, too oblique to read, and shut the fridge without comment. Soul decided not to push it, in no small part because he had no idea how likely Justin was to flat out murder him if pressed, and the three of them settled at the kitchen island to eat pizza that was equal parts horrible and amazing as only the best pizza can be.

"So," Giriko said after maybe his fifth slice, "I'm gonna need that calc help. The pizza was at least fifty percent bribe."

Soul blinked at him, halfway through a slice of meat lover's, and managed a confused affirmative around a mouthful of food. That was when he realized that Giriko apparently meant _right now_ , because he went and got his backpack and set up shop next to Soul on the island, strewing notebooks and textbooks and weird bits of paper across the granite before at last finding the particular trainwreck of a binder he'd been looking for. Thankfully Giriko was the type to ask questions until he figured things out on his own instead of wanting to be shown what to do, which Soul guessed was because he found that type of instruction patronizing. Whatever it was, it left him free to keep stuffing his face while he explained calculus, so he wasn't about to complain. 

Sometime around the point where Giriko really got the hang of their homework was when Soul looked up and realized Justin had managed to fall asleep on the countertop, snoring quietly into an empty pizza box.

"Uh, Giriko," he said, and Giriko's head snapped up.

"Oh, this again," he said once he saw Justin, rolling his eyes. "You got any blankets?"

"Yes?" Soul responded, not sure what exactly was going on -- but then, he hadn't known what the hell was going on since the day he walked into school, so that wasn't exactly anything new.

"Cool," Giriko said, setting his homework aside and standing up so he could go prod Justin awake. He'd herded his friend halfway to the couch before he realized that Soul was still sitting at the kitchen island, confused, and snapped, "Well, go _get_ them for chrissakes."

Soul jumped and went, jogged upstairs and dug around in the linen closet until he found the old quilts he'd washed when he first got home, giant handmade relics of his grandparents, and dragged them down to the living room. Justin was sprawled across the couch by the time Soul got back, lanky frame taking up more of the massive piece of furniture than Soul would have previously thought possible and already burrowed into a heap of overstuffed throw pillows. Soul kind of fidgeted near the far end of the couch, arms full of blankets, until Giriko noticed him and grabbed the quilts, which he dumped unceremoniously on Justin's head.

"Get some fuckin sleep," he said before Justin could do anything besides curse at him, then turned back to Soul. "I think I've got the homework covered if you have something else you need to do. It a problem if we crash here?"

"Uh," Soul said, trying to decide just what level of 'in too deep' this qualified as, and then finally just shrugged, helpless. "I guess not?"

"I'll just sleep on the other couch, no big," Giriko said, already back in the kitchen and getting to work on his calculus again. "Turn on the TV, willya? It's too quiet in here."

Turning on the television resulted in what Giriko dismissively called 'a decent enough Bond flick,' which Soul assumed meant it was acceptable. He left it on low volume, since Justin was already snoring, and then sort of stood awkwardly on the border of the kitchen and living room, wondering what on earth he was supposed to do with this situation.

"So, uh," he began after a few minutes, having already gotten himself some water and cleaned up the kitchen a little, "does Justin always fall asleep like that?"

"Eh," Giriko said, a low snort that sounded vaguely fatalistic somehow. "He doesn't get a lot of sleep at night, so he does this instead. Plus he just played a hell of a football game, as you know." A pause; he seemingly finished whatever math problem he was working on, then sighed and added, "I'm gonna assume you noticed when he mentioned it the other morning, but his family's really shitty. They live in a nasty-ass trailer park and the family pastime is screaming at him. So. He doesn't sleep a lot. And if you repeat this to literally _anyone_ I will find you and break every bone in your body, understand?"

"Yup," Soul said with feeling, because he had zero doubt that Giriko could and indeed _would_ pulverize him. "Got it. Look, I gotta pee, if you want a Coke or something they're in the fridge."

And with that he exited stage left with as much speed as he could manage without seeming like he was running away, already pulling his phone out of his pocket as he headed upstairs and trying to will his palms not to be so damn sweaty.

 _ ___he texted Maka and Kid once he was safely in the bathroom, sitting on top of the toilet lid and trying to breathe properly while his brain processed the entirety of his evening.

Maka responded within thirty seconds, and Soul could just _see_ her, one brow raised, killing glare already intensifying. 

Soul sighed, shoulders slumping a little. __

He didn't have the energy to engage when Maka and Kid's mutual incredulity resulted in his phone nearly exploding, though, and decided to just leave off with a promise to talk to the both of them tomorrow. There were people in his house, after all; they couldn't really expect him to hide upstairs and text them a ten page essay on why he didn't really want to blackmail people it turned out he kind of tentatively _liked_ , football players who it turned out weren't just protein shake-guzzling assholes after all.

He went downstairs and sort of skated around Giriko, ignored his buzzing phone and made sure his guest had what he needed before settling on the other couch and trying to make sense of whatever Bond movie was on the TV. In the end Giriko finished his homework not long after and joined him, did his best to explain what was happening even though Soul knew literally nothing about the whole thing. By the end of the movie he kind of got it -- and then it turned out he was in luck, because the next movie in the series came on. Since Giriko didn't seem inclined to go to sleep, Soul ran into the kitchen before the next movie started and made popcorn that he positively drenched in butter and salt, and he and Giriko spent a surprisingly enjoyable couple hours devouring it and heckling the television screen.

Soul went to bed a strange mix of happy and conflicted, glad to have a friend and totally unsure what this actually _meant_ , since his initial friends had assured him that Giriko was the literal Worst. The only thing everyone seemed to agree on was _Medusa,_ and she seemed to go out of her way to be nice to Soul. He couldn't figure out what it meant or what anyone wanted or -- _anything._

He eventually slept, and woke, and after breakfast Giriko and Justin decided to teach him how to dress properly, beginning with Justin, grave as a funeral, saying, "On Wednesdays we wear pink."

===

"Oh my god, _no_. You cannot come in here like that," was what Kid greeted him with on Monday when he tried to walk into the orchestra room so he could attempt to explain himself.

Soul cocked his head, pulled off his aviators so Kid could look him in the eye properly, and made a confused face. "What?"

Kid kind of -- sighed. Reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose, shut his eyes for a second, seemed to be counting to ten in an attempt to find inner peace. "You are wearing a pink polo shirt with a popped collar, _cargo shorts_ , and -- are those Converse with fucking -- fucking _gym socks?_ You reek of Old Spice and I've been ignoring that but this is too much, Soul. What the hell have you been _doing,_ this was _not_ the plan. We didn't tell you to go native."

"I thought this was how normal teenagers dressed," Soul said, a little hurt. "It's how Giriko and Justin dress, and they're the ones who seem most willing to hang out with me."

Maka shouldered Kid halfway out of the door and gave him a look that was equal parts bemusement and scathing. "That's how rich boy jocks dress, so I guess you're on the money if you've been taking cues from Giriko," she said. "Look, just lose the polo shirt. Surely you have a t-shirt on underneath?"

" _Fine_ ," Soul said, and pulled off the polo to reveal the absolutely stunning dragon t-shirt he had on underneath in all its eye-searing color. "But you asked for this."

"Oh my _god_ ," Maka and Kid breathed in awed unison, and Soul gave them a look that he hoped conveyed his total displeasure and then some.

"I -- okay," Kid said, and ushered Maka into the hallway, shutting the door behind him as he followed her. "We'll do this out here. Where did you _get_ that shirt?"

"My brother," Soul said as he followed Kid a little ways down the hallway to a quiet corner, determined not to sulk but really _wanting_ to.

"Your brother the violin prodigy," Maka said, and just shook her head. "Anyway. What's this about you deciding you want to suddenly be friends with _Giriko_?"

Soul sighed and put on his best voice of reason face. "Look, I don't think this whole blackmail scheme’s really worth it, okay? Has Giriko or Justin even _done_ anything to you lately? I thought it was all the rest of the team being dicks."

"You are correct," Kid said before Maka could do more than frown. "But Giriko is the one person in this school who might be able to get them to leave the rest of us alone. If nothing else, having information on hand to shut them down would prove very valuable, you know this."

Soul just -- made a face. "Have you ever considered actually _talking_ to him instead of just assuming you're going to have to blackmail him?"

Maka blinked at him, incredulous. "Have you _lost your mind?_ Are you even talking to the same Giriko? What makes you think he'd be the type of person to say 'oh, sorry, I realize now that I've been a phenomenal fuckstick, I'll stop harassing you immediately'?"

"I'm going to work on it," Soul said, stubborn in the face of her disdain, shoulders hunched underneath the straps of his pack; Kid gave him a veiled, curious look. "I just don't think it's as simple as you guys seem to believe."

"Whatever," Maka said before Kid could comment. "Honestly I'm not that interested in Giriko. What about _Medusa?_ "

"I don't really know," Soul said, because that much at least was the truth. "She doesn't spend that much time around me, but when she does she's _super_ nice. That said, the only thing you and Giriko seem to agree on is that you both hate her guts, so I don't know _what_ to think. Most of the time we've spent together has just been her telling me completely bananas shit like 'I have as many Twitter followers as Kanye,' and I'm pretty sure you can't blackmail her with that."

"You'd be correct," Kid said, thoughtful. "But you know, she's seemed kind of not herself lately."

Maka snorted. "She's been positively horrible this past week, now that you mention it. She looks _old_ , like she forgot makeup existed and that was the only thing keeping her together. We even almost had a _conversation_ , because I had to corner her about the long list of things that are supposed to be her responsibility that _I've_ been handling, and instead of blowing me off she just let me talk, like she didn't even have the energy to walk away."

"Giriko said she went on some kind of date with Hiro," Soul said, and Maka and Kid stopped talking to each other and snapped all their focus back to him. 

"She _what,_ " Maka said, so totally taken aback that for a second Soul caught himself wondering if maybe he'd said something horrible and not realized it, or that maybe he'd had some kind of mental breakdown and started speaking in tongues.

"That's interesting," Kid said, and then mercifully steered Maka away from the whole topic. 

Funny how it only took two minutes of talking about something horrible to make getting lectured about dressing like a presumably sane person seem attractive. By the end of the week Soul had given up on understanding the fashion phenomenon entirely and taken to carrying extra outfits around, pulling on polos in between classes and changing socks and dressing in way too many layers for his comfort even as October came round because no three people could seem to agree on what kind of outfit was acceptable.

And then one day he parked his car -- in the back lot, finally, because they'd gotten him a parking pass after _forever_ \-- high fived Giriko on the way in, stopped to let Medusa fix his hair, her best vixen smile firmly in place as she left a lipstick imprint on his cheek as a token of her favor, and made his way to the orchestra room just in time to get _mobbed_.

"Oh thank god, you're _okay,_ " Maka said, way closer to him than Soul thought she'd ever been, because Maka didn't seem all that big on physical contact.

" _Damn_ ," Black Star said, shutter shades frighteningly absent as he pushed Maka aside so he could grab Soul and kind of shake him around a bit to be sure he was all in one piece. "Thought you might be dead, man, we all know you've been hanging out with the football players, I was afraid I might have to avenge you and turn to a life on the run as a playboy assassin -- "

"What," Soul said, and Kid chose that moment to wade in, both Maka and Black Star moving aside for him without a fuss, which might actually have been the weirdest part of the morning so far.

"I assume you don't take time out of your busy _Teen Wolf_ viewing schedule to watch the news," he said, almost eerily calm compared to -- well, now that Soul looked around, compared to nearly everyone else in the room. "Hiro's body was found early this morning in the woods behind the school."

" _What,_ " Soul said again, too aghast to come up with anything else.

"You heard it here first, bro," Star said, looking almost _dismayed_. "They've got cops over there and everything now, but Dr. Stein was out there way before anybody else showed up. I heard something _ate_ Hiro's _guts_. I heard his brain was found _all over_ \-- "

"Star," Maka said, and while he obliged her and snapped his mouth shut, the grin he gave her would have been enough to incite retribution on a normal day.

"I heard that Dr. Stein found something out there, and he's not telling," Kid said, though his tone was such that Maka just gave him a cautious look and didn't comment. "Be careful, all of you."

"What, do you think that Mr. Galland and Hiro are connected somehow?" Maka asked, looking and sounding more than a little incredulous. "Why would they be? I'm not sure they'd ever even _seen_ each other before."

Kid shrugged, an elegant lift of slim, black-clad shoulders. "True," he said. "Though that doesn't prove anything, really. What they have in common is that they're both dead, and maybe killed by the same person, though obviously I can't prove that. It's just a feeling I have. Besides, we have a concert coming up and Soul has to rehearse with us soon, so I need him alive."

 _"Obviously_ ," Maka said, rolling her eyes, maybe a little relieved for the subject change and more so when the bell rang.

"I'll walk with you to first," Black Star said, and Soul and Maka both blinked at him in mute surprise. " _What._ I have to be seen near this t-shirt, I have literally never seen colors like this in my _life_. That dragon is the size of his _entire torso_. It's _majestic._ "

"Majestic is hardly the word I'd use," Maka muttered, and then, in keeping with tradition, pulled one hand out of her jacket pockets so she could grab Soul's elbow and drag him away, Black Star skating along after them.

They made their way through the hallways, out into the cold and back inside again, pushing through crowds of murmuring students until they got to the bio classroom, and then -- 

"Who is _that,_ " Star said, coming to a dead stop in a hallway full of moving people and causing what to Soul looked like a near-fatal traffic jam.

"Eh?" Maka's head snapped to the side, following Star's stare with pinpoint accuracy and landing not on Medusa, who was loitering near the door to the classroom and looking -- well, jaw-dropping, and Soul hoped that Maka never found out he'd ever thought that word in relation to her -- but on the tall boy she was talking to, someone _Soul_ had certainly never seen before.

Maka tilted her head a little. "I don't know," she said, frowning. "He must be new, or we'd know him, right?"

"Maybe _you_ wouldn't," Black Star said, grinning and sliding his shades on, "but _I_ sure would. Gotta be. Soul, if you don't want to fuck around with Giriko I get that, but _please_ keep an eye on Medusa, I've never seen someone go from looking like a hag to so damn bode over the course of a weekend, _seriously_."

Maka sort of -- looked like she might burst a blood vessel, and Soul edged away just a _little_. "Black Star," she said, every word from gritted teeth, "I _swear_ I will end you. What the fuck is _bode?_ "

"You know," Star said still watching Medusa as she sidled closer to the stranger, "like bodacious. As in, goddamn, look at her bodacious bod. Haven't you ever seen _Ferngully?_ "

A few heartbeats of silence ensued as Maka stared at Black Star as if deciding whether or not killing him on the spot would be worth the uproar and apparently decided against it. "Never say that word in my presence again," she said at last. "Soul, we have to go or we're going to be late. Try to figure out whatever _that_ is, if you don't mind."

"Okay?" Soul said, because he was apparently never going to leave this world where everything was surreal and he never understood what was going on, and watched them vanish into the crowd before making his way into the classroom.

The first thing he noticed was not, for once, that he'd been accosted by Medusa or greeted by Tsubaki; it was that they had a substitute, which made him wonder just where Mr. Stein _was_ , especially given Black Star and Kid's claims. He made his way over to Tsubaki, since Medusa was quite occupied with the new kid -- was that her standard greeting, then, accosting people? -- and settled carefully next to her, craning his neck a little to see if anything was going on outside. It wasn't, and Tsubaki just shook her head when he inquired, because she didn't know anything more than Black Star or anyone else did. 

"Sit down, everyone," the sub called, and to Soul's surprise the class managed to present some semblance of order as their names were called for attendance. Once she'd taken attendance, their sub sat on Stein's desk, legs neatly crossed, face impassive, and addressed them directly. "As you know, I am the principal's assistant, Ms. Yumi. Dr. Stein is out today, so I'll be filling in in an emergency capacity while we find a substitute for the remainder of the week. I'm sure you've all figured out already that there has been a serious incident, and I will get to that -- but first, you have a new student. Free?"

The new kid stood to his full, _towering_ height, and raised one hand in a lax wave. "Yo," he said, and as he looked over the class Soul noted with a bit of a jolt that, judging by the strange color and deformity of the iris, he must be blind in his left eye. 

"Thank you, Free," Ms. Yumi said, and gestured for him to sit. "I'm afraid we'll have to postpone your formal introduction. As you all know, there has been a tragedy: one of your classmates has been found dead. It's been concluded that there is no danger to the student body at large, so I'm afraid we won't be sending you home. That said, your teacher has taken a short leave of absence, so you'll be watching a movie for today. If any of you need someone to talk to, please let me know and the counselor will make time for you as soon as she possibly can."

There was murmuring and, to Soul's moderate surprise, a raised hand instead of a shouted question. "What happened to Hiro?"

That, he realized belatedly, had been Medusa, doing a pretty good on-the-verge-of-tears voice. "I'm not at liberty to speculate," Ms. Yumi said, voice crisp, and went to get the TV set up for a movie. "For now, do your best to concentrate on your classes, and hopefully we'll have a better idea of what happened soon."

During the movie, Tsubaki pushed her notebook into Soul's line of sight, just enough for him to read what she'd written: _if Ms. Yumi is here, that means the principal must be dealing with this in person. Don't think anybody's seen him before. This is serious. And -- how did Medusa know it was Hiro?_

 _How did Black Star know it was Hiro?_ he wrote back, and Tsubaki shrugged.

_Not the same._

Well, maybe not. Star had apparently been creeping around in the woods for whatever reason, which wasn't behavior Soul expected from Medusa. Short of that, how _would_ she have known?

"When I woke up this morning, I was all alone," Medusa said to him some time later while they were between classes, face almost petulantly distressed. "That was the first I knew he was missing. Then I got to school and -- I just _knew_ , Soul." A heavy, bosom-heaving sigh. "Sometimes, when you really connect with someone, you just _know._ "

"That's horrible," Soul said, wondering if maybe he'd misjudged her a little, doubting for the thousandth time the stories he'd heard. "Are you sure you're all right?"

That got him an almost uncomfortably warm smile. "Oh, I'll be all right," she said, back to flawless lip gloss and eyeliner that would make a man go to his knees after a week or more of looking stretched thin and pale. "It's just -- I don't know, I thought maybe we could have had something, you know? Not like me and _Maka._ "

Soul blinked at her, the unexpected opportunity blindsiding him. "What?"

"Oh, you know," Medusa said, waving one perfectly-manicured hand. "When you're a kid you'll be friends with _anybody._ It's not my fault that I grew up and realized that I didn't have to stay friends with her just because her father's the vice principal. You don't have to stay in an abusive relationship, you don't _owe_ people just because you used to care about them once. We never had a lot in common, anyway, she's always been such a nerdy goody two-shoes. I'm too pretty for that and anyone with half a brain knows it."

"Oh," Soul said, because he had nothing else to offer, and at the next hallway intersection they went their separate ways. 

" _What,_ " Maka snarled when he relayed the conversation to her in the band room after school, and Black Star grabbed her arm so she wouldn't storm off in search of her ex-best friend. " _Fuck_ her. I'm going to get her ass demoted so far down that she'll have to go back to playing sousaphone with the rest of the peasants like the French horn scrub she goddamn _is._ "

"You tell her, girl," Star said, and let her go after a moment. "So who's the new guy?"

"I don't know," Soul said, shrugging. "Not really, anyway. His name's Free. I think he's blind in one eye. I think Medusa might be dating him? It's really hard to tell."

"Yeah," Maka said, voice black as pitch, "it is, mostly because she treats everyone who pays her the slightest bit of attention like they're her favorite person in the whole world. Do you think I could convince Ms. Blair to demote her just because she hasn't been doing any of her work? Who wants a senior drum major who slacks off all the time?"

Soul shrugged and gave her an apologetic look. "I don't know," he said, because he really didn't, high school social machinations were well beyond his ken to say nothing of _marching band._ "I'm sorry I haven't been able to get you anything useful."

She shook her head and walked across the band room to throw herself into the ancient recliner reserved for the drum majors, a black leather monstrosity that looked fit to fall apart at any moment. "It's not your fault that she's terrible and smart enough not to give anyone enough evidence of it to call her out," she said, and Soul caught himself breathing a little easier for her forgiveness. "If I were you, though, I'd try talking to Eruka or Mizune. They tend to know things they have no business knowing, and I'm sure there's some way to get them to spill. Out of curiosity, has Giriko had anything to say about Hiro?"

"Eh," Soul said, dragging out the vowel and hunching his shoulders a little. "He never liked Hiro. I don't think he's _glad_ that this happened but I kind of get the impression that he thought Hiro had something bad coming to him because he was kind of a suckup and kind of an asshole."

"He's sure not wrong," Star said without looking up from his phone. "Hiro was like my least favorite JV kid. Are you two good? Tsubaki wants me to go running with her, she has a meet soon."

Maka waved him away and he scooted out of the band room, heelys struggling on its thin carpet as he flexed for the drumline on his way out. "She runs cross country," she said to Soul's inquiring look. "Star might not play hockey any more, but he still trains with her. They've been inseparable since middle school."

"Ah," Soul said, and settled into the hard plastic chair of one of the desks near the recliner. 

"Soul," Maka said after a minute, to Soul's eyes uncharacteristically hesitant, "I don't really -- are you _okay_ with being around Medusa? Something about her ever since this summer kind of seems -- "

"Insane? Hungry? Oh wait," Soul said, excitedly seizing upon a bit of relevant information, "I saw this movie the other day while I was taking a break from _Buffy_ and I don't know if you've seen it but -- "

"She isn't Regina fucking George, Soul," Maka said, infinitely tired. "And of course I've seen _Mean Girls_ , everyone on this earth has. And I'm being serious here, honestly. I want to get her the fuck out of band and I wouldn't be against lowkey ruining her life for what she did to me, but I don't want to get you into a legitimately bad situation. That new boy really makes my skin crawl for some reason."

Soul shrugged. "His eye's pretty gnarly and Tsubaki doesn't like him either, but I don't really know what you're getting at. It's not like evil supernatural forces are trying to take over, right?"

Maka eyeballed him. "Oh, you _have_ been watching a lot of _Buffy_."

Soul flushed and let it go. Maka waved him off as soon as he suggested that he needed to get home, already engrossed in whatever complicated, arcane documents she was responsible for as the only drum major doing any work at this point. And he _did_ want to get home, it had been a weird, kind of shitty day, except as soon as he walked out the door he was accosted -- not by Medusa, thankfully, but Eruka wasn't exactly his first choice.

" _Soul,_ " she said, and for the millionth time he was just grabbed and pulled along.

Soul fought off the urge to say 'that's my name, don't wear it out,' followed by 'you don't _know_ me,' and settled for, "Doesn't anyone around here understand the concept of personal space?"

"Like you were doing anything important," Eruka said, not slowing down and certainly not relaxing her grip. "I had to wait out there _forever_. You know the band doesn't let _normal_ people in there."

"Woman," Soul said, just in time to get distracted trying not to get slammed into a wall of lockers as Eruka took a corner too fast and too close. "And what is it you think I'm doing _now?_ "

"Helping," she said, and pulled him into -- the back of the theater? Wherever it was, it was dark and full of the weirdest assortment of props he'd ever seen in his life.

"Okay wait," Soul started, then noticed that once he got past the darkness and the chaotic assortment of items and the dust and the fact that Eruka seemed intent on crushing his arm with her bare hands, he could kind of hear someone sniffling, so -- okay maybe she wasn't trying to take advantage of him or whatever this was. 

Eruka gave him a look that was a clear warning even in the bad lighting and led him over to a corner, past shrouded stage props and old lighting to where someone was sitting in a miserable ball in the corner of what he thought might be a fake castle.

"Eruka?” asked a thin, quavering voice, and Soul belatedly recognized Mizune, pink hair in disarray, makeup ruined, tears streaked through her eyeliner and down her face.

That was enough to make him pull up short regardless of whether or not he though Eruka might actually break his arm.

" _Look_ ," Eruka hissed in his ear, "you're like the only nice boy we know. Mizune really liked Hiro, and now he's dead and she never got to tell him. I don't know what to _do_ , okay?"

Soul looked at her and looked at Mizune, who was blinking teary eyes at him in moderate confusion; considered the implications of the fact that the person Eruka had run to was the new kid that she'd known for less than two months, and raked a hand through his hair, sighing, rather than keep arguing.

"Hey, Mizune," he said instead, and climbed through the faux-window of the castle so he could sit next to her. "Do you -- " well, he wasn't about to ask her if she was okay, that was blatantly untrue -- "do you need to talk about it?"

She answered him with a drawn-out sniffle. "I just really liked Hiro," she said after a minute, and leaned into him when she teared up again. "And Medusa knew I did, and she still went after him, and now -- "

Soul put an arm around her shoulders when she teared up again, rubbing her shoulder as comfortingly as he could because nothing in his life had really prepared him for this moment. "Sounds like she hasn't been very good to _anybody_ lately," he said. "Do you need a ride home?"

Mizune shook her head. "I'm gonna stay with Eruka, but thanks." She paused for a moment, and gave him an unexpectedly earnest look. "Be careful around Medusa, okay, Soul? I know she's pretty and popular but -- M-Maka's right. She really has changed."

Soul promised her he would, and sat with her for a while until she felt better enough to make fun of his horrible 90's dragon shirt, and eventually Eruka let him go with a severe expression and a nod that he assumed meant 'thanks, but if you tell anyone about this I'll break your kneecaps.'


	3. No church in the wild

The thing was, Soul didn't tell anyone. The _real_ thing was, nothing changed. Mizune and Eruka still clung to Medusa, they still laughed and smiled at everything she said, nobody let on that anything had ever been amiss. They treated Maka exactly the same, with the disdain that only popular girls can have for those they see as beneath them. Medusa had approximately zero apparent remorse for Hiro despite having dated him -- despite, apparently, having liked him well enough to pursue him despite her supposed friend's obvious interest. It seemed she was too busy for pedestrian things like grief or compassion, no matter how often Soul tried to remind himself that he didn't know any of these people very well and shouldn't be jumping to these kinds of conclusions. 

That was difficult, though, especially when even the adults seemed to share the student body's general opinion on her.

"I can't say that I'd call Medusa your _best_ choice for a new friend," Ms. Mjolnir said to him a week or so later when they had their semi-regular meeting to make sure he was doing okay, her voice very carefully neutral. "She has a bit of a reputation, and I can't repeat to students most of the things I hear people say about her. I never thought I'd say this, but to be honest I think Giriko is a much better choice if you and Maka aren't getting along well enough to spend time together."

Soul was still trying to process the idea of having Maka Albarn _in his house_ when someone knocked on the office door, interrupting the traditional 'are you sure you're doing okay on your own' and 'are you sure you don't have any idea what might have happened to Hiro' line of questioning.

"Yes?" Ms. Mjolnir asked when her assistant poked his head in.

"Sorry to interrupt, Marie," he said, looking -- to Soul -- refreshingly honest in his remorse or at least up front in his apprehension as to the consequences of interrupting, "but Joe is here to see you?"

Something in her face changed and Soul had to suppress the urge to leave before things got dangerous, because 'dangerous' was _exactly_ the impression he got from the gleam in her eye.

"Give me _just_ a moment, Soul," she said, and without waiting for him to respond followed her assistant out into the little lobby in front of her office. Soul sat very, very still, unsure what to do but somehow under the impression that something bad might come of Ms. Mjolnir finding him somewhere other than where she'd left him.

She returned several minutes later, followed by a genial-seeming man in -- Soul blinked. He'd never actually seen an adult wear a shirt with a popped collar paired with a _vest_ , _cargo shorts,_ and sandals with socks.

"Howdy," the man said, smiling and disarmingly pleasant despite Ms. Mjolnir watching him like she wanted him dead. "I'm Joe."

"Um," Soul said, and accepted his proffered hand. "Nice to meet you, I'm Soul. What's with the flowers?"

"Oh, these?" Joe said, staring down at the giant bouquet of roses he had tucked under his other arm. "Just thought I'd try to make Marie's day a little better, she's under a lot of stress right now."

"Joe is a _detective,_ " Marie said, taking the roses from him with grace and an understated kind of murderous intent. "He's looking into Hiro, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to send you back to class a little early unless you have anything you still need to talk to me about."

"Actually," Joe said, and Soul just sighed and settled in.

===

"...so apparently Kid has a _point_ ," he finished some time later, still a little rattled over having been questioned by a _detective_. He was still in his first semester of public school, how did anyone survive to adulthood in these madhouses?

"That's _horrible_ ," Medusa said from her perch on the other side of the lunch table, pretty much fellating her ice cream spoon and giving Free a filthy look out of the corner of one eye. "What has the world come to when a loser like that is _right?_ "

"Do they really think the same person got the band director _and_ Hiro?" Eruka asked, eyeing Medusa askance. "That doesn't even make _sense_."

Medusa cackled a little at that. "Oh, Eruka, do you really expect a _murderer_ to make _sense?_ You really _are_ naive. But Soul -- tell me about the detective. Was he hot? Do you think he'll question me for dating Hiro or should I act like I know something to make sure?"

Soul shrugged, deeply uncomfortable at her tone and the way she was looking at him. "I don't know? I think he and Ms. Mjolnir have something going on, though. He brought her flowers."

"How old school," Medusa said, and tossed her spoon onto her lunch tray before standing up and grabbing her purse. "I'm out of here. Mizune, take my tray. Free, let's go, this place sucks and I don't want to be at school when they force us to go to a stupid-ass _assembly_ over all this bullshit like they _inevitably will_ like some kid dying is the end of the fucking world."

Just like that she was gone, per usual, so Soul finished lunch with Mizune and Eruka and tried to ignore the way Eruka watched Free and the way Free ignored everything around him that wasn't Medusa.

===

She wasn't wrong though; there _was_ an assembly, and afterwards Soul had to convince Ms. Mjolnir not to call his parents so they could hear the news from an adult. If there was one phone call he absolutely never wanted to have, it was the one where his parents called him up to freak out about murderers and force him to give up his crazy notion of trying to have a normal life for a few months.

Not that anything that had happened since he came home was _normal_ , but at least he could pretend for about half an hour every day while he was driving to and from school. School was obviously total insanity, and then he got home and half the time Giriko showed up with a pile of homework and Justin in tow so he could pass out for a while in peace on Soul's couch. That was actually getting to be a problem, too, because he was starting to get rusty at the piano and Kid had started complimenting his sight-reading capabilities often enough that Soul could recognize a warning for what it was.

Still, he was doing well in school and he actually kind of liked hanging out with Giriko when he wasn't being loud and angry -- so, outside of school and football games and only if Medusa wasn't around or being talked about -- and Maka had made some noises like she wanted him to come watch the marching band practice or maybe sit with them during their break at a game, which had made his stomach do something kind of weird, so things weren't all bad.

Except then Joe's body was found in the woods right before Halloween, and everything fell apart all over again. Dr. Stein had been back for only a few days when he disappeared again, replaced this time by a substitute who scared everyone into behaving just because the way he looked at anyone who tried to misbehave was flat-out terrifying.

"My name is Mifune," he said on the first day, once they'd all filed into the room and stared a bit and decided that staying in their lanes was what they needed to be doing, at least for the moment. "Don't care if you call me mister. Stein's out for a while because the detective investigating recent events has been found in a million pieces in the woods and apparently the powers that be think your teacher might be involved for some reason. If you ask me about this, it won't go well for you, so don't bother. Unlike your previous sub, I'm actually going to teach, so I'm also going to need you all to give up on any thoughts you're having of coasting through this whole semester doing nothing. Am I understood?"

That got a murmuring chorus of assent. Somehow, in his shock, Soul wanted to ask what kind of teacher wore dress pants and sandals and had hair to his waist, but he figured that wouldn't fly either and kept his mouth shut.

"Ms. Mjolnir's under investigation too," Star said at lunch, it being one of the rare days when Maka had managed to get to Soul before Medusa did and sequester him off at her lunch table. "I heard that they think there might be _animals_ involved."

"Heard they found evidence of human involvement, too," Kid said, and handed Black Star his pudding cup before he could try to steal it. "Got some parents talking about pulling kids from school because they don't feel safe."

"Star," Maka said after a minute, "have you maybe considered _not_ spending your free time in the woods for a while?"

"Screw _that_ , I want to know where Kid gets this information," Star said, mangling the pudding cup in his typically unsuccessful attempts to open it. "All I've got is the rumor mill but Kid doesn't _talk_ to people, how do you find this stuff out and why are you usually _right?_ "

"Hm," Kid said, pilfering Black Star's juice box with the straightest face Soul had ever seen. "Take your pick: either I'm a mind reader, all I do when you're not around is gossip, or my father is a secret agent and I'm being groomed to take his place so I have access to his intelligence network."

"I have literally never _seen_ your father, and since he isn't a ninja assassin like my parents, I have no explanation for this," Star shot back, chewing through a carrot stick in obvious annoyance while Maka tried not to laugh at him. "I just assumed you were some kind of a fungus, sprung fully formed from a fuckin' violin left in someone's attic for too long and sent to this school to be a permanent goddamn buzzkill on my life."

The slanted smile Kid gave him for that comment made Soul possibly more uncomfortable than Medusa ever had.

"Yo," said Giriko's rumbling voice from behind them, and everyone at the table dropped what they were doing to turn and face him with varying degrees of combat readiness apparent in their expressions.

"Calm down, nerds," he said after a few seconds of progressively more exasperated silence, hands deep in the pockets of his letter jacket and looking even more done with them than Maka looked with him. "I'm not here to declare war or whatever it is you think I do in my spare time. Medusa wanted me to give this to Soul, so I'm gonna do that and then I'm gonna go so none of you have a fuckin' hissy fit."

He was as good as his word: handed Soul a hot pink flyer and backed away, hands raised in the air and expression painfully sardonic.

"What is that?" Maka asked once he was out of earshot.

"Uh," Soul said, and unfolded it, squinting at the virulent color. "A Halloween party invitation, I guess?"

"That girl is _stone cold_ ," Star said, once again glued to his phone in the name of 'app development'. "A Halloween party, what, four days after the third murder in a few months? I'm gonna have to step up my game or people might start thinking she's got brassier balls than I do at this rate."

"Gotta maintain your brand," Kid said, and took a long drag off the juice box.

"Word," Star said, and turned to fistbump Kid before looking back at Soul. "So you're going, right? This is at the joint Medusa-Giriko household, you realize. I hear they have armed guards to keep the undesirables out, so it's not like any of _us_ could go even if we wanted to."

"Or could," Maka added. "I've got marching stuff to attend to."

"And," Kid added, giving Soul a hard look, " _you_ have a performance, remember? I'ma need to see your fuckin' _hands_ at the concert. And I'd imagine you should be able to be fashionably late to the party and no one would be upset, anyway."

Mild panic set in as Soul realized Kid was correct and he had a lot of practicing to catch up on, which returned everything to situation normal. He'd felt almost like he was getting used to things for a few days and obviously the universe couldn't have _that_.

"Of course," he said, clearing his throat nervously, and Maka gave him a stare that was equal parts amusement and judgement.

Kid rolled his eyes. "I'll text you the details again," he said. "Do you need someone to give you a ride so you don't get lost?"

" _No,_ " Soul snapped, and did his best not to pout. "I can work a computer. Maps exist. I'm not helpless. So why do you guys want me to go to this stupid party?"

"I can tell you where Medusa hides everything," Maka said, a bloodthirsty gleam in her eye. "If you're going to have any chance at all of getting something I can actually use against her, this will be your best opportunity."

Soul sighed. "Okay, you have a point," he said. "Go ahead, let's make the list already and get this out of the way."

Maka pulled out a notebook and a pen and got to work with alacrity.

===

Soul had her list tucked into the interior pocket of his suit jacket when he headed out the door on the night of the concert and the Halloween party, having spent the better part of an hour nervously checking and triple-checking that he had everything he needed, that he could actually play all the music, that his expensive tailored performance suit still _fit_. He found that he was in an unfamiliar position: performances had stopped making him nervous years ago, but he'd never played together with people he considered _friends._

There was also the part where Kid kind of gave him the impression that he might leave him in a shallow grave somewhere if Soul messed things up, but that was something else entirely.

"Nice," Kid said when Soul made his way backstage once he got to the venue. "Red shirt? I'd have taken you for the type to be very traditional in your performance clothes. Are those _pinstripes?_ "

Soul shrugged, lifted his chin a bit, fought down the urge to fuss with his -- _black,_ thank you, he wasn't a savage -- tie. "Is that a _problem?_ The shirt matches my eyes. I'm used to being a soloist."

"It's totally fine," Kid said, an appraising glint to his eyes. "With me, anyway. Hold still and I'll fetch Ms. Nygus since, despite rumors to the contrary, I don't actually run this orchestra."

Soul managed to only fidget a _little_ when Kid ran off, and wasn't even weird about greeting the assortment of orchestra students who rushed past him in various stages of preparation while he waited. He sort of knew a pretty decent number of them just by virtue of spending time around Kid and going to a few rehearsals, but to be honest he was pretty sure half of them didn't even know he existed: the school had more than one orchestra group since the program was fairly large, and he wasn't accompanying _all_ of them.

Idly, he pulled the aviators out of his pocket where they'd been folded alongside Maka's note and put them on -- just in time for someone to call his name.

"Soul! You made it! Kid was kinda wondering, you know how he is," said a tall girl whose name eluded him for a few panic-inducing moments as she made her way towards him. "Nice _suit,_ damn boy. Nobody told me you cleaned up so pretty."

"Pretty?" He'd never been called _that_ before, and as he was making a bewildered face he remembered that her name was Liz and the fact that she was actually pretty close to Kid, as these things went. "Thanks, I guess?"

"Anytime," she said, grinning wide. "What's with the aviators, you nervous?"

Soul smoothed over his flustered expression as best he could. "Performances don't make me nervous," he said, because it was true. "Might be slightly concerned that Kid is going to leave me dead in a ditch if I hit a wrong note, though."

Liz's grin tempered into something more low key, but also more _evil_. "Well, if he does, I'll be helping. I promise to say kind words and put down some salt, okay?"

"Gosh," Soul said, at last achieving maximum coolkid don't-give-a-fuck expression and tone, "thanks _so much_ , Liz. Where would I be without you?"

"Buried in unhallowed ground and doomed to rise again as a zombie," she said cheerfully, then perked up when she caught sight of something over his shoulder. "Well, here comes Kid and Ms. Nygus, so I've gotta run or they're gonna make me help with setup. See you on stage, hotshot."

"Yup," Soul said and turned to wave to the orchestra director. "Hi, Ms. Nygus."

"Well don't you clean up like a new penny," she said. "He's fine, Kid. He'll be behind the piano for most of it, anyway, no one will care. Besides, that's a tailored suit. He'd look dumb if we put him in some random white shirt that probably wouldn't fit right. Just lose the glasses," she added, giving him a stern look that reminded Soul that she was, in fact, a very tall woman with the demeanor of a warrior queen.

"You make it sound like I was upset about it," Kid said, giving her a look of what might have been the mildest possible reproach. "I just wanted to make sure you had some warning before he got on stage in that getup."

"He looks more respectable than half of your cello section, and it's certainly no more unprofessional than those stripes in your hair," she said, winking one bright blue eye at Soul before patting Kid on the head and leaving to go oversee stage setup.

"Satisfied?" Soul asked, brows arched up above his glasses so Kid knew he meant business.

"We'll see, won't we?" Kid asked philosophically, then gave him a tiny smirk. "And I'll see myself out, since apparently you have an admirer."

"Do what," Soul said, and in the time it took him to turn and look for whoever Kid was talking about he'd vanished.

"Soul," Maka said from somewhere out of his line of sight, and he whipped around, all pretense of cool gone a thousand times faster than he'd put it on.

"Oh my god," he said, trying and failing to stick his hands into pockets he just didn't have in a suit. "What are you _doing_ here?"

"Attending my friend's concert?" she said, ten thousand percent more dry than Soul could ever be, and then his heart damn near stopped entirely when she made a you-utter-toolbag kind of face and got _way_ too into his space so she could remove his glasses. "Did Giriko make you sensitive about your eye color or do you just think you're cool now?"

"Dude, if you think I could have a single conversation with Medusa without those glasses to save my ass, I'm not sure if I'm flattered or if I think you're insane," he said, trying to edge away from her without _looking_ like that was what he was doing. "Didn't you have marching band stuff today?"

"This _afternoon_ ," Maka said, eyebrow still up, eyes sliding from his head to his feet and back up again. "I didn't know you owned respectable clothing. Good job."

"Why does _no one_ remember that I was like two auditions from becoming a professional musician before I came here," Soul said, tone and face incredulous, doing his best to throttle down all the nerves he'd developed in the past fifteen minutes. 

"Soul," Maka said, very gently as though speaking to someone who might snap at any moment, "you wear dragon t-shirts that could legitimately cause blindness. You wear crocs with shorts and Old Spice and pop the collars on your pink fucking polo shirts. I'm not sure I've ever _heard_ you play the piano, I just take Kid's word for it. I spent the first week of school trying to keep you from being shakier than a chihuahua after a triple espresso shot. Give me a _break_."

The face he made must have really been something else, because it made her _laugh_ , which Soul wasn't sure had happened before. 

"I just wanted to tell you good luck," she said, after an impressive effort to master her expression. "And to make sure you're okay with going to Medusa's. I appreciate that you're willing to do this but I don't really -- I hope you don't feel like you _have_ to. I didn't mean to drag you into something that has nothing to do with you."

"It's a little late for that," Soul said, then tempered it with, "but I'm not -- mad? I kind of do like Giriko and Justin when they aren't being loud assholes."

"And Medusa?" Maka asked, expression so blank that Soul somehow felt like it was a trick question.

Rather than use his words, he opted to imitate Justin's best 'I long for the peaceful oblivion of the void' expression, which at least earned him a sidelong smile and a chuckle.

"All right," she said, glancing towards the heavy curtain between them and the stage when Nygus's voice came on over the mic. "Time for you to knock 'em dead. Do you need a ride to Medusa's afterwards?"

"No offense," Soul said, fiddling with the knot of his tie, "but I'm not sure having _you_ drive me would have good consequences."

She sighed. "Good point. At least try to check in so I know you're still alive, all right?"

"What," Soul said, unable to keep from grinning toothily, "you worried Medusa might try to take advantage of me?"

"Are you trying to tell me that that's _not_ a valid concern?" Maka asked, arms crossed, eyebrow high, leather jacket adding about a thousand points of intimidation factor to her stance. "And no, not so much that. Maybe more that she roofied you, or tried to eat you alive. That seems like it'd be her style, right?"

"Probably," Soul said, and then Kid returned with all the pinpoint force of a guided missile and dragged him away. The last he saw of Maka, she was giving them both a bemused wave and heading for the audience.

===

He arrived at Medusa's place about an hour and a half later, having earned a grudging 'you did all right' from Kid, a rose from Liz and her _very_ enthusiastic sister, Patti, who was apparently a cheerleader, and a standing ovation from the audience when Ms. Nygus indulgently let him play a little solo piece. More specifically, he arrived at the gate to Medusa and Giriko's family property and was buzzed through by security, confirming at least _that_ rumor: they really did have guards to keep the undesirables out.

And then there was the house itself, set something like half a mile back from the road with a huge plaza of a driveway and a gaudily-lit fountain that hand to god looked like a horrible, aesthetically painful concrete replica of the Trevi Fountain. He parked the Mercedes at the far end of the roundabout where it looked less out of place next to all the other, much newer, cars, and straightened his tie for the thousandth time that evening before heading for the front door. Maka and Kid had both assured him that there was no reason for him to head home and change, that Medusa would _definitely_ appreciate the suit and that her parties were slightly dressier than standard high school fare in the way that most parties hosted by the well-off liked to be.

Still, the _house._ Soul got out of the car and made it partway to the door before he gave up and stared, and it wasn't because he was impressed -- living in Europe didn't make him _European_ , but it had definitely given him some grounding in architecture and what did and did not classify as dignified or even just _acceptable_.

"Soul!" He turned to find Mizune heading his way, and didn't even have to fake the smile he put on for her.

"Hey, Mizune," he said, and let her take his arm. "Sorry I'm late, I had a concert."

"Oh, right," she said, giving him a look of wide-eyed surprise. "I forgot you still hang out with the orchestra kids. You're here now, though! And you haven't missed much, no one is even that drunk."

"That's -- good? I guess," Soul said, and cocked his head as he looked at her more closely. "Are you dressed up as a mouse?"

"Yup!" she said, blushing a little -- and Soul would, too; her skirt was scandalously short, the only real nod to a mouse being the little fuzzy ears she was wearing and some painted-on whiskers. "What about you?"

"I don't really have a costume," he said, shrugging. "Just fresh from the concert in my suit. I'm sure I could pretend to be a vampire though, right?"

"With those eyes? _Totally."_ She led him towards the door and he went back to eyeing the house itself; something about his face must have caught her attention, because she made a curious sound.

"Oh, nothing," he said, distracted. "Just, none of the exterior windows match? They're all different styles. And I think this molding is _foam?_ Do these columns even -- "

"Soul," Mizune said, maybe a little reproachfully but _good lord who the hell built this house_ , and pulled him through the front door and into a veritable _wall_ of noise and jumping bodies.

"I think my bathroom has this tile," he said, glancing down to make sure he wasn't stepping on or in anything horrible, but there was no way Mizune actually heard him over the slamming bass of _#SELFIE_ , which had been cranked loud enough that Soul could feel his ribs vibrating. Someone pressed a red cup into his hand, a clear warning if he'd ever seen one, but -- he drank it anyway. The tasting notes, he thought distractedly, were bad decisions, fruit punch, and mouthwash. There wasn't time to dwell on that, though, because somebody in a Scream costume got up in his face and screeched ' _HAPPY HALLOWEEN_ ,' and pretty much all of Soul's energy after that went to not getting toxic waste hunch punch on his best suit while Mizune pulled him along.

Eventually Mizune led him across the bathroom-tiled foyer with its fake plants and gaudy chandeliers and into Medusa's immediate line of sight; she was dressed as the kind of nurse that Soul was almost certain inspired as many wet dreams as it did nightmares, and she was waving and heading his way when a large, callused hand closed around the arm Mizune wasn't holding.

"Nope," Giriko said, and Mizune let go of Soul with a squeak. "Move along," he rumbled, and hauled Soul through a crowd that parted almost magically before him and out onto the house's bizarrely terraced back porch.

"Hi?" Soul said eventually, once they were outside and he'd recovered from the sudden absence of deafening sound and found his balance, which was a little off-kilter thanks to whatever had been in that drink.

"Don't drink any more of that," Giriko said, appropriating his cup and tossing it off the porch. "You're lucky you didn't fuckin' run into Arachne, she's even worse than Medusa. How about instead of letting my creepy step-sister paw you we just go out to the back shed? I want to show you something."

Soul didn't actually _say_ the words 'stranger danger,' but the general idea must have been pretty apparent from the look he gave Giriko, who rolled his eyes and sighed hugely.

"Don't look at me like that, I just want to fuckin' hang out with someone who isn't drunk or an asshole or _Medusa_ , okay? Justin's already out there. Simmer down." To his credit, Soul supposed once he got a closer look in the dim light, Giriko looked a little -- _less_ than usual, letter jacket absent, shoulders a little rounded against the pounding music and yelling teenagers in his home, mouth set in a stressed, tired line.

"Sure, no problem," Soul said, shrugging. "So, uh, also, do you think it's safe to have all these tiki torches out here with all these drunk people around? And while I'm on the topic -- was that a _smoke machine_ Medusa had set up by her seat?"

"Can't say I'd be upset if this trash heap burned down, so I don't give a fuck 'bout the torches. And yes, that is a smoke machine. Medusa owns one. She said, what was it -- ' _I like to enter the living room with VIVACITY',_ " Giriko said, none of his discontent leaving despite Soul's acquiescence, and slouched off towards the dark back yard and the woods beyond it, pulling a flashlight out of one pocket. "Come on."

Soul filed that bit of information away in the corner of his mind reserved for impossible nonsense and followed him, only hesitating a little; the porch gave way to manicured grass which gave way to pine forest before he paused again. "So, uh -- exactly how far into the woods at night am I following you, here, because I've seen horror movies before, man, and -- "

" _Bruh_ ," Giriko said, incensed, and stopped mangling whatever shrubbery was in his way to glare at him over his shoulder. "Look, if you need proof that I'm not just luring you into the woods to murder you, please note we're following a set of power lines. There's a shed out here, this house is on like fifty fuckin' acres."

"All right, all right, lead on," Soul said, hands raised in an attempt to placate, and surreptitiously sent Maka a text to the tune of 'still alive but following Giriko into the woods, notify my next of kin' while Giriko wasn't looking.

Except he wasn't lying, and Soul wasn't even sure what he'd been expecting -- it was just that Giriko was kind of terrifying when he looked like he wanted to cause violence, which was _always,_ and several people had died of mysterious and incredibly violent causes in the woods in the past few months, so maybe his nerves were worn a little thin. Even so, after a few minutes of walking through the woods they did in fact come upon a large shed in a clearing that looked like it'd had about fifty solid years of better days -- but there _was_ light, and Justin was leaning against the door, scrolling through something on his phone, so it turned out Giriko hadn't been trying to murder him after all.

"Sup," Giriko said once they came in range, and Justin gave them a lazy wave of acknowledgement. "Is Masamune here?"

"Yeah," Justin said, as always looking exhausted and unwilling to do anything that required more than the bare minimum of effort. He tucked his phone into the pocket of his jacket, but otherwise hardly moved except to glance at Soul. "He's in there fiddling with the drum set, hell if I've ever understood it."

"Drums?" Soul asked, head tilting to one side. 

Giriko's response was to put a hand between his shoulder blades and shove him through the shed door. Soul stumbled in, arms pinwheeling, hoping desperately that he didn't manage to flail into, say, a garden edger or something similarly pointy and tetanus-inducing. Instead he found himself standing in a well-lit room, dusty but not dirty the way he'd been expecting, with a dark-haired boy giving him a skeptical look from where he sat behind a drum set, sticks idly tapping out an idiosyncratic rhythm on his snare.

"You must be Soul," he said, tucking some of his long hair behind one ear. "Heard a lot about you. I'm Masamune."

"I wish I could say the same, but Giriko doesn't exactly do small talk," Soul said, then furrowed his brow as something in his memory nagged at him. "Wait, are you Tsubaki's brother Masamune?"

"That'd be him," Justin said from the doorway, and wandered past Soul to fiddle with some of the wires snaking across the floor, which drew Soul's eye to the rest of the contents of the shed: a moderately impressive music setup, all told, comprising a bass guitar, a drum kit, and a pretty decent-seeming amp setup. "And I'm sure you know by now, but this is another one of those situations where if you go telling anyone at school that Masamune is in a band with us or even _talks_ to us on a friendly level, we'll find you and no one will ever see you alive again."

At this point in his acquaintance with Justin and Giriko, Soul couldn't even take it too seriously. "Yeah, okay, I -- wait, you're in a _band?_ I have so many questions, I don't even know where to _start._ " 

"We do metal covers of pop songs," Giriko said, and as Soul turned to stare at him, incredulous, he saw two things: Masamune set his sticks aside and stood, and Giriko shot the door bolt. "And," he continued, cracking his knuckles and rolling shoulders that in that moment seemed as wide as Soul was tall, "now that you know our secret, we're going to have to kill you."

Soul forced a laugh to cover how unnerved he was. "Okay, sure, Giriko. I bet you say that to all the -- "

Justin's hands closed on his arms from behind, twisting them around and back with a vicious jerk, and very suddenly Soul realized that, one: no one was actually joking; two: Justin was about ten times as strong as he looked; and, three: if he tried to struggle he was probably going to dislocate one or both shoulders.

"Wait," he said as Giriko approached, panic rising in an unbidden, wild rush from his belly, "are you _fucking serious_ , knowing about your goddamn _metal cover band_ is some kind of killing offense, did you _actually_ kill Hiro and Joe and the _band director_ \-- "

"No," Giriko said, sneering. "I didn't give a fuck about any of them."

He looked like he wanted to keep talking, but was interrupted by Masamune entering Soul's field of vision, a terrifyingly huge Bowie knife in one hand and a book in the other that he appeared to be reading from. 

"We need to get it right this time," he said, thumb rubbing across the knife's leather grip. "Are you _sure_ this one is a virgin? Medusa is more than enough of a problem, Giriko, we don't need to deal with _two_."

"Two _what,_ " Soul demanded, trying to sound a million times tougher than he felt and failing miserably to twist free of Justin's grip. "What the fuck do you care if I'm a virgin? What _is_ this, some kind of weird occult bullshit?"

"Masa, get out of here, we have this covered," Giriko said, and let Masamune hand him the book and the knife. 

"All right," Masamune said, and the way he smiled when he looked at Soul was positively blood-curdling. "I'll see you on the other side, then."

Soul and Giriko stared at each other in silence as Masamune let himself out; Giriko took a minute to bolt the door back and peer outside for a few more minutes before returning to where Justin was still holding Soul in place with very little apparent effort.

"What the fuck is going _on,_ Giriko," Soul said, only stuttering a little, voice only breaking a _little_ as panic started to really set in. 

Giriko sighed and set the book aside. "Look," he said, and Soul somehow found a little more space to be surprised in when he realized there was real, honest regret in Giriko's face. "This whole situation's a little outside my control at this point."

Soul squirmed in Justin's grip, and the taller boy grunted and tightened his hands until Soul decided being still was preferable to having his bones ground together. " _What_ situation? If you're gonna -- _kill me_ , or whatever the hell you think is going on here, at least _explain_ so I don't die a clueless loser."

Giriko snorted, regret giving way to a wise-to-your-game annoyance. "The short version, because I know you're hoping Justin will give you an opening, is that I have _got_ to get out of this town. Justin needs to get out of here even more than I do. Best way to do that? Get recruited for college football somewhere far the fuck away from here."

"And I'm sure you _know_ ," Justin added, twisting Soul's arms just a little more to drive home his point, "that making it in the big leagues isn't exactly easy. So we wanted to load the dice a bit."

"Yeah, okay, he makes it sound almost cool, but the truth is that Arachne made fools of us," Giriko said, back to being surly and looking like he wanted to dismantle something. "This was her idea. Turns out she wasn't lying and you really _can_ sacrifice people to the devil in exchange for a favor."

" _Seriously,_ " Soul said, because he _had_ seen a ton of horror movies and honestly every TV show that dealt with this was pretty clear on this topic, namely: do not do this.

"It would have _worked,_ " Giriko growled, shoulders hunching, looking like maybe he'd moved on to wanting to dismantle _Soul._ "Except Arachne _did_ lie to us about her sister. You have to sacrifice a virgin."

"I'm sorry," Soul said, much, much too incredulous to remember that he was trying to locate the opportune moment to get away from Justin, "I must have left my _crazy asshat_ to _actual sense_ dictionary at home, because it sounds like you're telling me you tried to sacrifice Medusa Gorgon to the devil in exchange for a successful football career, and man, I can believe a lot but that is just _too much_."

"We didn't _try_ ," Giriko said, and his glare alone could have pinned Soul in place. "We _did it_. And it fucked up because Arachne lied to us, and now Medusa's some kind of demon-possessed antichrist succubus and we didn't even get the perks we asked for."

"Dude," Soul said -- he wasn't even scared any more because this was all just _too crazy_ , they had reached the event horizon of bizarre shit -- "I've heard a lot of theories as to why Medusa suddenly became hot and popular and ditched her best friend, but this really does take the cake. Is this some kind of hazing thing?"

"This is stupid," Justin said. "It doesn't matter if he believes us. Are we gonna do this or not?"

"I don't particularly _want_ to," Giriko said, looking about ten years older than he was. "I kinda like this kid. And -- I don't know, Justin. Sometimes I think we should just do this ourselves instead of, you know, consorting with demons. Once was kind of enough for me."

On the heels of that statement came a weird, taut silence; Soul could _feel_ the look Justin was giving Giriko, and it only took about five seconds for it to get really uncomfortable. Even the fact that Soul was pretty convinced they were just trying to screw with his head couldn't make things less awkward.

"He still _knows_ now," Justin finally said, right before Soul was about to suggest that they maybe let him go so they could sit down and sing campfire songs and talk about their feelings. "I'm pretty sure that means we _have_ to kill him."

"Who's gonna believe his ass?" Giriko asked, making an annoyed gesture with the hand not holding the giant knife. "For that matter, it's not like we can _stop_ Masamune now. If we let this shrimp go and just -- "

He was interrupted by the sound of the shed's second story back window slamming open, and while they were all still trying to turn around and figure out just what the fuck was going on, _Black Star_ climbed through a _second story window_ , waved jauntily at them, and dropped to the floor like this was an everyday occurrence for him.

Soul reflected, in that moment, that it probably goddamn was.

"Wow, you guys are definitely not the goatsuckers I was looking for," Star said, strolling towards them, clad all in black and with what Soul strongly suspected might be night vision binoculars slung round his neck. "But, hey, Giriko, Justin -- what's the haps, I heard you're worshipping satan now?"

" _What the fuck are you doing on my property,_ " Giriko snarled, the knife in his hands suddenly extremely relevant once more.

Star held up his hands, grin never faltering. "Now, now. Masamune is here, so why wouldn't Tsubaki be here? And if Tsu is here, guess what? _I'm_ here. It's nighthawk night."

"I don't care about your hockey bullshit," Giriko said, and took a threatening step towards him.

"Gonna have to kill both of them now," Justin said, sounding resigned -- the way he might say 'guess we're gonna be late.'

"My man," Star said, eyeing Soul and staying a careful distance from Giriko, "consider an alternative: you _don't_ kill us, because who would believe us and why do we care, provided you're not going to try and stab either or both of us? And anyway, how would you explain our disappearance on your property?"

"Masamune," Justin said, and Star raised an eyebrow at him that Soul had to agree with, because Tsubaki's brother might have come off as kind of fucking weird, but that didn't mean that Justin was making any sense.

"Hey, so, whatever is actually going on here, how about this: you're obviously having a rough damn time of it," Soul started, and everyone in the room turned to look at him. "How about you tell us what's actually happening and we help you set it right in a way that doesn't involve murder?"

"You must have missed the part where Medusa's immortal now," Giriko said, teeth bared a little more than might have been called-for.

"Dude, are you _still_ on about this," Star said, looking like he wanted so badly to start laughing but knew it might get him shanked.

" _It's not my fuckin' job to convince you!_ " Giriko shouted, his frayed patience finally giving out entirely. "Here's _the haps_ : Masamune is literally headed back to the house to tip over all those tacky-ass tiki torches and burn the house down. Soul going missing was just going to be a tragic result of a tragic fire, no fuss, no muss. If we kill your ass too, well, double the value, double the fuckin' fun. You wanna have a sleepover? Medusa will still be alive in the morning. We can go over there and watch her burn and not die if you want, because _that's what happens_. I have literally seen her light her hand on fire and it healed in thirty seconds. She has been _eating people_ , and the only way we're gonna get rid of her and get the fuck out of this _shitty town_ is if we do this the _right_ way instead of fucking up per usual!"

"Because nothing counteracts the mess you made by sacrificing someone to the devil like sacrificing _someone else_ to the devil," Soul said, and Justin did something that felt like he was trying to relocate Soul's shoulders to his ears. "Have you maybe considered getting in touch with a _priest?_ "

"My bro here, for once, brings up a valid point," Black Star said. "All that supernatural television seems to have taught him at least one useful thing, which is one more than I expected. _Have_ you talked to a priest?"

"Fuck this," Giriko said, and turned to look at Justin. "Do you even care about this any more? I think I'd rather try and clean up this mess we made and get famous on our own time than make it worse than it already is. I mean, we _can_ just leave town once we graduate if we have to."

Soul, concerned immediately that Star might say something that would piss Giriko off enough to get them killed, noted that, while Black Star's eyebrows appeared to be trying to reach low earth orbit, he displayed some form of common sense and kept quiet.

"Fine with me," Justin said, and finally let go of Soul, who all but fell to the floor in relief. "I didn't _really_ want to do it the first time, but it'd been a bad couple months."

"So, just to be clear," Soul said, edging away from Justin and into a position from which Black Star would be better-equipped to defend him, "Medusa has been -- what, _eating people?_ Is that what these murders have been about?"

"Yeah," Giriko said, and hard on the heels of that admission Black Star began _cackling_.

"Oh god," he gasped, and pulled his phone out of his pocket so he could start furiously texting. "She's a _literal maneater_ , my life will never again be this perfect. Someone notify Nelly Furtado."

"If you're texting someone about any of the shit we just talked about," Giriko said, eerily calm as he took a few steps towards Black Star.

Star rolled his eyes. "I'm not texting _anyone._ Like I've been telling Soul for literally weeks now, I'm working on an app. I got some data tonight that I need to put into it, that's all. I know how to keep secrets, Giriko, don't get your jock strap in a bunch."

"Hate to break up this lovely meet and greet, but we need to get out of here," Justin said, and Soul followed his stare to the far window, through which he thought he could vaguely see a warm light that hadn't been there before. "Don't care if you believe us about the demon possession, but the house on fire is indisputable. Let's bounce." He gave Soul and Black Star an impassive look. "Masamune might not have done anything yet, it's hard to know. We told him to wait a little while. Might be you can get your Mercedes before it gets melted down and explodes."

"Oh fuck, my _car_ ," Soul spat, and took a few steps towards the door before realizing he hadn't exactly left the conversation. "I'm going to do some research," he said, turning back towards Giriko and Justin. "You said Arachne told you how to do this?"

"Yeah," Giriko said. "And Medusa told us how to do it _right_."

"Well _that's_ the biggest case of 'citation needed' I've ever heard of in my entire life," Black Star said in an amused drawl, ambling across the shed to stand by Soul.

Soul sighed, managed not to facepalm, and took a deep breath. "Okay, well. I'm going to do some research."

"So you believe us now?" Justin asked, lifting one eyebrow in the most understated expression of scorn Soul had ever seen.

" _Something_ is definitely going on," Soul said, the closest he was going to let himself get to an admission of belief. "But I don't exactly have time right now for you to give me every detail of this whole supernatural clusterfuck of a situation. Why don't you guys just come over tomorrow like you were going to anyway? We can order pizza and pretend we're going to do something normal instead of discuss the methodology behind sacrificing virgins to the devil in exchange for -- "

"The ability to _ball so hard motherfuckers wanna fine you_ , am I right?" Black Star said, eyes sliding between Justin and Giriko like he expected a high five and rolling his eyes when all he got were hateful stares. " _Fine_. No fun allowed, I got it. Let's get out of here before your car gets set on fire, Soul."

"Good plan," Soul said, and breathed a little easier when no one tried to stop them from leaving. He nearly collapsed in relief when the house ended up to _not_ be on fire, either; he made his apologies to Medusa, who gave him a look like she was just biding her time acting friendly until the day she tore out his heart, and practically threw himself into the Mercedes.

===

The evening culminated in everyone Soul knew in his living room listening to him recount the night's events to the tune of: Maka, looking angry and incredulous; Kid, looking honest-to-god _shocked_ and unsettlingly maybe a little _panicky;_ Tsubaki, who was _very_ concerned -- and well she should be, considering what her brother was supposedly getting up to -- and Black Star, laughing like a lunatic, barely able to stay on the couch. Soul had ordered pizza and was still nervously eating it, hoping in vain that sufficient quantities of salt and grease and garlic bread might ease his suffering.

"There is literally nothing about this entire story that is believable," Maka said for something like the fourth time.

"It's been a while since you left," Kid offered, hands a little white-knuckled on his knees. "Turn on the local news. Giriko's family is old money, their house burning down would warrant an emergency broadcast."

"Masamune isn't answering my texts," Tsubaki said while Soul hunted for the remote. 

"Also," Maka added while Soul was flipping channels, "Star, what the hell _were_ you doing on Giriko's property in the middle of the night? That's not exactly prime trailrunning time."

Black Star quit snickering and rearranged himself into a normal position on the couch, glancing sideways at Tsubaki as he did. "Well," he said, and paused. "I guess I should confess. I _have_ been training with Tsubaki, but she's mostly been covering for me."

Maka and Kid gave him nearly identical looks of exasperated curiosity when he paused for what Soul had to assume was dramatic effect.

"My secret is -- I've taken up birdwatching. Not this wishy-washy shit, either, the kind where people own telescopes and get up at four in the morning on weekends and holidays and nearly get arrested for trespassing. I have gotten into _fights_ with people on the internet over this. I am developing an app for it so that these poser ass motherfuckers can stop trying to act like they know better than I do." He leaned forward. "The app is called _Warblr_. I am going to be _rich._ "

"I," Kid said after a moment, while Maka was still staring and presumably occupied with trying to decide how _exactly_ she was going to affect Black Star's demise. "I'm not sure which is weirder, the birdwatching thing or the Medusa thing."

"This is how I feel _all the fucking time_ ," Soul said, and then the TV caught his attention. "Holy shit."

On the television, Giriko's house was burning.

"So I brought up the birdwatching for a reason," Black Star said, watching as the firefighters on the screen struggled to put out the fire. "The local bird life has been _super_ disturbed lately. They've been doing crazy shit that is really bizarre even for birds. And tonight someone said 'hey, by the way, we may have loosed an eldritch horror upon the earth' and I, for one, believe it, considering how the wildlife's been."

"So," Maka said, still staring at the TV, "I roped the new kid into spying on my ex-BFF for me and somehow this has turned into 'the joke is she's actually demon possessed and you should believe it because the local birds are being weird'? Am I getting this correctly?"

"And because I correctly informed you, with no way to know aside from actually having had that fuck-weird conversation with Giriko, that his house was going to be on fire," Soul said, way too tired to deal with someone else's skepticism when his own was already off the charts. "I'm sure that within a day or two they'll arrest Masamune and then you'll _really_ know."

"Maka," Kid said, voice soft and grave, "I think we should really give him the benefit of the doubt for now. I'm going to talk to Kim and Jackie, they probably have some relevant information."

She gave him a very put-upon stare. "This isn't _Teen Witch_ any more than it's _Teen Wolf_ , Kid," she said, then made a face like the entire world had let her down. "But fine. You do that. If he's right about Masamune, I'll play along. I'll even talk to Ox and Harvar."

"Wow, the whole nerd parade," Black Star said, looking like a kid on Christmas. "The academic team and the local witch joining forces with the band, how can we lose with _that_ dream team? I'm gonna tag in Kilik and maybe the kids too, I feel like we're gonna need backup that can put into physical practice the ass-kicking theory you guys are sure to produce."

"Kilik? The _kids?_ " Soul asked, doing his best to be better than to react to Maka's comment about _Teen Witch._

"Kilik is my hockey bro," Star said, enthusiasm so bright in his face and movementsevery movement he made that it was almost catching, that Soul could almost believe that a bunch of teenagers really could take down a demon. "And the kids are his -- I'll go with proteges. They go by Fire and Thunder and they are _savages_ on the court."

"And excuse you," Maka added, "I am more than capable of busting Medusa's tits all on my own."

"Yeah, back when she was _human_ ," Black Star said, way too jazzed about potentially going up against a literal demon for Soul's comfort. "But now? Who knows, Maka. Let us help."

"Whatever," Maka said after a moment's pause, then stood. "I'm going home. I'll talk to you Monday."

Soul looked at Kid, who gave him an expressive shrug that nonetheless told him absolutely nothing useful, and they said their goodbyes as Maka made her way out the door.

"Does Medusa know where you live?" Kid asked once she'd gone.

"No?" Soul said, puzzled. "Why?"

Star rolled his eyes so hard Soul caught himself wondering and maybe hoping a little that he'd pull a muscle. "So if Medusa is a literal man-eating succubus demon-thing," he said, creeping into Soul's personal space so he could poke him in the forehead, "and Giriko was supposed to kill you tonight but here you are, safe and sound, what do you think she's gonna do when she finds out?"

"Uh," Soul said, and tried to think it through. "I don't know? Maybe nothing. Maybe kill me."

"We don't have a lot of time, probably," Kid said, scooping up another slice of pepperoni. "She really may not care about you personally, but it's hard to say since Maka's demonstrably fond of you. Medusa always _did_ steal her toys."

"I'm not a _toy?_ " Soul said, with as many obviously tacked-on offended question marks as he could manage. "What the fuck. Since when is Maka _fond_ of me."

"My man," Black Star said, "I'll cut you some slack because you haven't been around long enough to really comprehend the legend of Maka Albarn. Everyone _knows_ she doesn't like people all that much. Her full circle of friends is pretty much me, Kid, and -- what, that's pretty much it now, right? Since Medusa turned traitor."

"She has plenty of acquaintances," Kid offered, eyes intent on the news broadcast. "She likes Liz and Patti all right. And obviously Ox and Harvar."

"Yeah but she isn't _close_ with them," Star said. "She doesn't go to their _houses_. She doesn't listen to them tell her totally batshit insane stories and agree to 'consider' them. Anyone else but us and Brodysseus she'd have told to go pound sand."

"Probably," Kid said, and Star looked startled at his agreement.

"So I'm _saying_ ," Black Star said, relocating to Kid's space, "Medusa might want to eat Soul's heart just on _principle_ , because Maka has something she doesn't."

Kid turned away from the TV to give Star an arch look, then turned to Soul. "You may wish to develop the flu," he said, unperturbed. "That will allow you a week or so off of school. Plenty of time for research. Also, I'll see if I can rustle up some books for you from my father's library. He has quite an extensive selection of books on the occult."

"Seriously," Black Star said, "who _is_ your father? Is he actually real?"

"If I told you," Kid said, allowing himself another one of those creepy almost-smiles he was so good at, "I'd have to kill you."

"Ugh," Star said, then glanced at his phone. "All right, it's getting late. I need to get home, so I'll see you nerds later. Let me know _immediately_ if you find something out. As the muscle of this operation, I _need to know._ "

"Yup," Soul said, and meant it; if anyone seemed likely to be able to defend him from the forces of evil, somehow it seemed like Black Star was the best candidate, which was _not_ exactly a reassuring thought.

"Hey," Kid said while Star was still yanking on his boots, "if you don't mind, I'll just crash here tonight. I can't imagine you really want to be by yourself after the evening you've had, do you?"

"Nooooot really," Soul said, realizing it was true about halfway through the first word. All this talk of Medusa murdering him out of spite wasn't exactly reassuring when you lived in a large house by yourself, to say nothing of the residual jumpiness that almost being sacrificed to the devil engendered.

"Cool," Kid said, and stuffed a huge chunk of pizza crust into his face. "I'll sleep wherever."

Soul glanced at the television, and despite the fact that Giriko's burning house was still on it found it reassuring. "Let's just sleep down here," he offered, and Kid nodded around another huge mouthful of pizza.

"Sure," he said. "I'll be right back, then. Gotta get my stuff out of the car."

Soul watched him go and suppressed a shiver; when Kid came back he was eating again, nerves sure to make him fat one day, and back to watching _Buffy_.


	4. She's a maneater

Giriko and Justin woke him up the next morning hammering on the front door sometime around nine a.m. Soul rolled off the couch, only kind of faceplanted into the floor, and answered the door wrapped in an ancient quilt, squinting into the sun.

"Move, loser," Giriko growled, and nudged him out of the way so he and Justin could let themselves in.

Soul noted that he was _nudged_ as opposed to _shoved_ , and while he appreciated it, it was still way too early for any of this nonsense and Kid was still passed out on the sofa besides.

"Hey, wait," he said in a hoarse croak, hating morning voice with a passion and wanting nothing so desperately as he wanted cinnamon spice oatmeal and about three more hours of relative peace.

Apparently he was too late, though, because Kid was already awake, greeting Giriko with his arms slung over the back of the couch, and not looking particularly mussed despite the hour and the fact that he'd still been awake when Soul dropped off.

Giriko drew up short when Kid appeared, though, so quickly that Justin nearly ran into him. "The hell are _you_ doing here?"

"Good morning to you too," Kid said, amused, voice still a little slow from sleep. "As it turns out, Soul has friends that aren't you, and you didn't seem too keen on sticking around last night to make sure he was okay after you tried to murder him, so." An elegant shrug, laden somehow with implied guilt. "Here I am. Why are _you_ here?"

"Hey fuck _you_ ," Giriko snarled, and Justin caught his elbow before he could do anything more than take an angry step forwards. "You think that Medusa would have let any of us live if I'd left with him, if she'd thought I betrayed -- _wait_. Why do you _know?_ "

Soul guessed he must have come a long way or something equally inspirational, because when Giriko glowered at him he kept a straight face and shrugged. "What, did you think I was going to somehow magically destroy her with the power of effective research?"

"And you thought _he_ was going to be able to help?" Giriko shot back, annoyed. "Why would you _tell_ people? If _anyone_ finds out about this and Medusa hears -- "

"I'm not about to go tattling," Kid said, voice placating, and rose shirtless from the couch to head into the kitchen in search of breakfast. "Like you, I also don't want to die."

"So you believe us, then," Justin said before Giriko could lose his shit, and Kid shrugged over the electric kettle and a box of instant oatmeal.

"As these things go, it actually makes more sense than Medusa just suddenly deciding to abandon her lifelong friend," he said, portioning out oatmeal into bowls. "Do you two need food?"

"Yes," Justin said, over top of Giriko's surly and obviously untrue "No," and Kid cocked an eyebrow at them before pulling out extra bowls.

Soul made his way into the kitchen and pulled out the giant container of Irish breakfast tea that his family had always kept well-topped off, set up four huge mugs and, while he was waiting with Kid on the kettle, turned back to Giriko.

"So," he said, trying not to salivate as Kid poured hot water over the oatmeal, "what do you have to tell us about this whole thing? What did Medusa and Arachne tell you, what was contradictory, what was just different?" He dug around in a drawer until he found a pen and a notepad. "I'm going to take notes and then I'm going to go to the town archives."

Giriko made an annoyed face at him that lacked the heart to be truly intimidating. "Can we eat first? Justin and I slept in the back of his goddamn Blazer and my father's in the hospital again, I haven't really had time to eat anything for a while now."

"The hospital?" Kid asked, refilling the kettle for tea. "Has he been unwell?"

Giriko glared again, but Kid was as unruffled as ever. "He's been sick for a while now," he said, and let Kid hand him a bowl of oatmeal, which he doctored with cream and the jar of peanut butter Soul handed him when he seemed to be looking for something. "And the damn house burned down. I made sure he was able to get out, but it still wasn't good for him. They wanted me to stay in a hotel with Arachne and Medusa, but -- " A shrug, a scowl, and angrily chewed mouthful of oatmeal. "Wasn't about to."

"Understandable," Kid said, and Soul accepted his own bowl once he'd gotten the tea set up. They ate quietly once everyone had gotten their preferred oatmeal addons sorted out, and even Giriko found the tea acceptable with a generous addition of cream and sugar.

"So," Soul said once they were done and Kid was clearing away dishes in the most unobtrusive way imaginable for a shirtless teenager, "go ahead. Tell me what they told you, and I can get started."

Giriko did, and Soul took notes, and Kid sat, sharp-eyed, and said nothing while Justin added whatever small details he remembered better than Giriko did.

===

In the end, what made Soul decide to fake illness wasn't fear of Medusa: it was the hours of the town archive. The _library_ had sane hours, tailored to support a populace that worked during the day, but the archive kept its own schedule. If you needed to avail yourself of its resources, you'd better make some time, it seemed.

Soul made time. He called the school himself, careful to sound as abjectly miserable as he possibly could -- and years of being around music and drama students had taught him a great deal -- and told them he was ill, stomach flu being his chosen malady, and they didn't even put up a fight. He presumed that it was because he was a good student and a special case on top of that, but whatever the reason, he was free for the week and immediately took himself off to the archive on Monday.

He was greeted by a dark-skinned, surprisingly young man whose flannel and hat were _matching plaid_. His initial request was for occult information, and he was treated to a look that was as lazy as it was judgemental -- but he was also led down into the bowels of the old building, well underground, and left in a section that 'should have everything he needed.'

It had a lot, to be sure -- an impressive amount, really, considering the general taboo on the subject. But, as Noah -- the archivist -- had said, it was a carefully curated collection with an eye to completion and 'no patience for petty political or ethical squabbles,' so Soul supposed that it wasn't _that_ big of a surprise. The problem was honestly going to be getting through such a large volume of information in a reasonable amount of time, which was dictated by what Giriko had told him: that sacrifices preferentially occurred on the night of the new moon, which Halloween had been and which gave them another four weeks before Medusa would _really_ get angry that Giriko hadn't done what she wanted.

Why she wanted it still remained a mystery, but Soul could posit several reasons without any outside help in the moments when he managed to suspend disbelief and assume she was, in fact, _possessed_.

The material he dug out of the archive wasn't actually very reassuring on this topic: Medusa was showing every sign of being truly under the sway of something horrible, and the sources he found that were actually comprehensible only seemed to back up Giriko's description of the ritual he'd tried and failed to perform.

He took a lot of notes. The school didn't expect him back till the next week, so he spent days in the belly of the archives, reading and writing stuff down and going back to reread things for the fourth or fifth time. He texted Maka and Kid and Giriko and Black Star, even, just to keep a handle on the fact that real people existed, that there was a world outside the archives building, that he wasn't actually going insane. It was, honestly, _gross._ It made him _feel_ gross, and he showered a lot, and wished desperately that the bottom level of the archives wasn't so goddamn frightening all on its own. 

"Be careful down there," Noah had said, straightening his horribly pretentious ascot. "This building is very old and no one wants to maintain it. Sometimes tar seeps up through the cracks in the floor. If you kick those bubbles, they explode, and I swear if I find tar on _any_ of the books I will hunt you down, because you're the only one that's been down there since the last time I checked. Also -- if you don't mind, could you take this sheet and mark down the lights that are out? I'll need to get them replaced, and I haven't had time to go down and tally everything up."

The stuff Soul was looking for was well out of the way, which came as no surprise. What _was_ a surprise, though, was how one _reached_ that particular part of the stacks: down several flights of stairs and through a side door on the far end of the room, up a half flight of stairs and into a weird sideways area tucked under the building's entry, complete with the occasionally hissing hydraulics that operated the solid metal front doors. Couple that with the general concrete and brick aesthetic, several burnt-out lights, and a nice bit of rusty fencing at the farthest end that blocked access to a small portion of the collection, and it was just a nightmare waiting to happen.

Especially, in Soul's mind, given the cold and the absolute _silence_ that pervaded the place; every time the doors hissed open he jumped, ready to defend himself from monsters or Medusa or Noah's fashion taste, half-numb fingers fumbling for something to use as a weapon. There was never anything waiting for him, though -- not that he ever really got used to it, any more than he got used to the feel of ancient books in his hands, leather creaking and full of dust and unsettling images.

What startled him more than weird noises and gross pictures was the fact that, one afternoon, _Maka_ showed up. Noah wasn't even with her when she found him tucked into a corner table, books spread everywhere, cross-checking some new fact he'd found with the kind of weary resignation that came from consistently having every note he took contradicted almost immediately.

"Soul?" she said, mercifully from enough of a distance that he only jumped a _little_.

He stuck his head out into the aisle and squinted at her, unaccustomed to focusing on something aside from faded type. "Maka? What are you doing here?"

She shrugged, and zipped her jacket against the chill as she approached him. "I thought you might appreciate a little help," she said. "I know my way around this place well enough. Where have you been looking?"

He told her, and showed her his notes. Maka looked through them with more care than Soul had expected, considering that her general opinion of the whole situation had appeared to be something along the lines of 'you're insane and this makes no sense because it is impossible,' but miracles did happen, he guessed. She even asked a few thoughtful questions before disappearing back into the stacks amidst demented hissing from the door hydraulics.

Soul stared after her, wondering if any of that had really happened, and then started collecting all the books he'd pulled so he could leave them for reshelving. He was tired, it was getting late, and after a week in the archives he was ready to give up on finding anything legitimately useful.

Except Maka came back with a stack of books he'd never seen before, and somehow they managed to puzzle out _some_ information that might help -- though it primarily dealt with the fact that, barring more advanced and highly secret techniques, their best bet for getting rid of Medusa was, quite literally, a stake through the heart.

"Not that I plan on _doing_ that," Maka added once they'd gotten what they could from the books she'd brought, "since I still don't really think she's _possessed_. That's for movies and fairy tales."

"If you have another explanation that makes sense, I'd _love_ to hear it so this can stop being my apparent reality," Soul said, and Maka just gave him an annoyed look that was cut short by the sound of the doors hissing open again. 

"I thought that Noah'd already locked up?" she said instead, tense suddenly, eyes on the hydraulics and one hand going to an interior pocket of her jacket. 

"He did," Soul said, sliding out of his chair, on edge because Maka was. "Why?"

"It's cool he's been letting you stay late, but he doesn't do that a lot," Maka said, and gave Soul a look that made his skin prickle. "And he never lets people in after hours as a rule. Get your stuff. I need to find a map of the fire exits."

Soul did what she said, too bewildered to do much else and too unsettled by her sudden shift from disbelief to deadly serious. "I thought you didn't think we were in any danger," he said, shoving his notes into his pack and getting it onto his shoulders as he tried to follow her to the emergency exit diagram.

"Medusa aside, people have been dying," she said as she led them back down into the main stacks level. "Noah doesn't let people in after hours, so something's going on. I don't want to be caught down here, I want to be near an exit while I find out what's going on."

"So you're one of those people who runs _towards_ the danger," Soul said, in enough of a haze to say inane things without really thinking about them or the fact that Maka might throw him down a flight of stairs if he didn't shut up.

Since there were no stairs handy, Maka just shot him the kind of glare that made the blood freeze in his veins and continued dragging his ass along until she got to the stair access door and its attendant emergency diagrams.

"Okay," she said after a minute spent in quiet, _intense_ communion with the evac plan, a minute Soul spent fidgeting nervously and glancing upwards as though it might give him some insight as to what was going on upstairs. "We're gonna take the stairs, _very quietly_ , up to the ground floor. If we hear anything weird, we stop and reevaluate. When we get to the ground floor, we stop and reevaluate before we actually go _through_ the door. Once we're through the door, we keep our damn heads down and see what's going on. Best case, Noah just thinks we're weirdos. Got it?"

"Are you sure that -- "

" _Soul_ ," she hissed, and he shut up and followed her into the stairwell, careful to make the door close quietly behind him while Maka prowled up the stairs.

He followed with as much stealth as he could muster while confused and wearing a backpack, managing to make his way in near silence that he was actually pretty proud of. While they were walking, ears straining, Soul had a weird moment of wondering: how had it all come to this? He'd just wanted to go to _normal people_ school, to be a normal teenager, to -- and yet. Instead he had _this,_ he had unexplained murders and a supposedly demon-possessed girl and a weird feud between the band and the football team and, cherry on top of this little bizarro world banana split, _Black Star._ He was researching the occult in a tar-coated, dimly-lit, creepy as hell town archive staffed seemingly entirely by one weirdo in an ascot, and now they were scuttling around under the horrifying presumption that a potentially demonic teenage girl had come to have a reckoning.

Maybe. Because that shit shouldn't be real, it was ridiculous.

But, when they reached the ground floor stairwell and Maka motioned for him to join her next to it, there was _blood_ smeared across the narrow glass window of the door. He gave Maka a look that was probably comprised of more than a little abject terror, and she put a finger to her lips and motioned for him to scoot out of her way. She wasn't looking terribly happy, either, but she still pulled out her phone and turned on the camera, lifting it slowly so that they could use it to peer through the window at least a little bit.

It did very little for Soul's nerves that the camera reminded both of them that there was actually a large bookcase in front of the door, blocking whatever was going on from their view. It begged the question: how had the blood gotten there, if there was nothing to see beyond the gory window?

Still. Maka eased out of her crouch and tucked her phone away, _very_ slowly pulled the door handle down, and sidled through it while Soul thanked every god he could name that Noah apparently kept the hinges oiled. He took off his pack so he could carry it while he did the same, and pulled it back on as quietly as he could once they were through. 

Soul noticed, while he was trying to do that, that the archive, for once, was not entirely silent: there was a soft, repetitive noise, skin-crawlingly wet and _thick_ , and Maka had zeroed in on it and was very slowly and very quietly moving _towards_ it because she was categorically _insane._ Did she understand the concept of self-preservation? Did Soul? Clearly not, because he _followed her._ To be fair, she moved away from the sound at first, following the shelves back so that they could circle round at as much of a distance as possible, but --

Eventually they came to the end of the shelves, and when Maka paused to make sure Soul was close beside her, when she leaned close to remind him where the exit was, when the sound got well and truly nauseating, a sick, organic, _viscous_ sound --

"First things first, I'll eat'cha brains," Medusa's voice crooned in a slurping whisper, and Soul felt himself go very, very pale.

Maka, meanwhile, still had her phone out, and had thankfully had the mental fortitude to _turn off its flash_ so that when she edged it around the side of the bookcase and took a picture no one was the wiser. The image she got, though --

"Then I'ma be rockin' gold teeth and _fangs,_ " Medusa snickered, and the picture explained the hideous _crack_ that followed, because it showed her, face candy-coated in blood, one hand sunk deep into the remains of Noah's torso and presumably wrapped round his spine. "Cause that's what a motherfuckin' monster _do._ "

Soul wanted to babble incoherently regarding near _every detail_ of that picture, but Maka put a hand over his mouth, paler than Soul had thought she could go, and motioned towards the stairwell door again. Somehow they scuttled back, and once they were through -- and that was nerve-wracking with the backdrop sound of Medusa _literally eating_ Noah -- and down two levels, she slumped against the wall and looked like she might be sick. "Where did you park?" she asked in a hoarse whisper, eyes fixed firmly on the ceiling.

"Down the street," Soul said, swallowing bile as a fine tremor started up in the vicinity of his heart.

"Okay, look," Maka said, eyes slipping closed as she tried not to vomit, "I'm pretty sure I parked closer to the fire exits than you did, and I'm certain my car can haul ass better than yours can. Not to impugn your venerable diesel, it is a well-made car, but let's be realistic," she added when he reflexively made to protest. "We need to get the _fuck_ out of here, and fast."

"Not gonna argue," Soul said, wheezing against panic and doing his best not to recall anything about the picture Maka had taken. 

"Good," Maka said, and opened her eyes. "Okay. We're gonna go out this door and out the fire exit, which is going to set off a million alarms. So Medusa's gonna take the fuck off, and I don't know if she'll go after us or just try to get away before someone shows up. Does she know where you live?"

"Not that I know of," Soul said, and was annoyed to find his teeth chattering. "Don't think anyone else knows who'd tell her, either."

"There's always the phone book, I guess," Maka said, "but we'll have to take that chance. She knows where I live, where Star lives, where most everyone else lives. Okay. So that's it. We'll go out the fire door and run like hell for my car, and then haul ass away from here, and once we're safe we'll figure something out."

"Okay," Soul said, and dragged himself to his feet when Maka stood up. They eased through the door and onto one of the lower levels of the stacks -- the building had been constructed on a small hill, so its lower doors actually opened onto the street behind it -- and tiptoed over to the fire exit. 

"Ready?" Maka said, jaw taut, eyes too bright, but still somehow -- not _calm_ , exactly, but controlled. 

Soul nodded, she nodded, there was a slow count to three, and then the world narrowed to screaming alarms and a frantic sprint to Maka's Volvo, gleaming white in the dusk.

Somehow, Soul thought as he threw himself into the passenger seat while Maka did the same and hauled the car into gear, he'd forgotten that it wasn't actually the middle of the night, that horrible things could happen in full daylight.

"Should we -- " Soul started as they reversed onto the road at a speed he hadn't known was possible in reverse, and Maka cut him off with her words as surely as she did by flinging the car into drive. 

"I am _not stopping_ ," she said through gritted teeth, weaving round slower traffic with a determination that would have been impressive if Soul hadn't been so sure it was going to get them killed. "And no, we do _not_ need to call anyone. That's the _archive_ , people actually care if its fire alarm goes off, they'll show up fast without us dialing 911. Besides, if we did that? They'd track the number. I don't really want to be linked to this by anything other than probably being on security footage heading downstairs."

"Do you think she took out the cameras?" Soul asked, suddenly wondering -- what if she hadn't, what if there was _proof?_

Maka snorted and took a turn _way_ too fast, since _when_ had _Volvos_ been _fast --_ "I'm certain she did something. Medusa isn't stupid, demon or no. If you need something to do, call Kid, call Star. Hell, call _Giriko._ "

Soul didn't call anyone, because the way Maka was driving and the events of the day thus far would have resulted in his voice cracking every third word, but he texted everyone he could. He activated the shit out of that phone tree, and while his house was still quiet and empty when they screeched to a halt in front of it, things didn't stay that way for very long. Long enough, though, for Maka to get through the front door and beeline for the bathroom; Soul was still holding her hair back when they heard Giriko's howler of a car -- Corvette engine, he'd said? -- arrive.

" _What the goddamn fuck,_ " Giriko yelled, bulling through the front door like the world's surliest tornado, and while Maka was collecting herself Soul leaned out of the bathroom door to look at him. "You are as useless as _tits on a boar_ , son, you just -- "

"Giriko," Justin said from behind him, a hard glint in his eyes but otherwise composed, and Giriko managed to get himself under control.

"Okay," Giriko said, and went into the kitchen, grabbed a soda and threw himself onto one of the bar chairs, fists thumping onto the countertop with pent-up frustration as Soul and Maka followed him at a much more sedate pace. "Did you _really_. Really. Not believe me? She is a straight up _demon_ now, dicksqueeze, and you're _surprised_ about this?"

" _Boy,_ " Maka yelled right back with no sign that vomiting up all her fear and stress had taken any toll on her temper, so abjectly furious that Giriko's spine went ramrod straight, that he sat the fuck up and watched her with _caution,_ that he _leaned away_ from her without realizing it. "You sacrificed my _best friend_ to the _devil_ , you _ruined every goddamn thing_ , and you think you can come in here and _blame Soul_ because he didn't want to believe this outrageous pile of horseshit? I should _feed_ you to her!"

Giriko kind of -- bristled, and then drooped, shoulders falling, rage converting into fear and regret. "I didn't -- ugh. It felt like the only way out, Maka, I was _desperate_."

Justin glanced at Maka, at Soul, at Giriko. " _We_ were desperate," he clarified, and while the situation was awful and what they'd done was awful, Soul couldn't help but think he was brave for it.

"She was my _friend,_ " Maka said again, and the anger had left her, too; now she just sounded tired and like she wanted to cry. "She was my friend and now she's a monster and someone is going to have to put a stake through her heart. I'll never get her back, _never._ "

Soul put a hand on her shoulder and his stomach dropped when he felt the fine tremble there; he steered her towards the couch and let her drop, sat next to her and sighed when she leaned into him and shook. Giriko, to his credit, looked rather stricken, like he really hadn't considered the effects of anything he'd done that had driven them to this point.

"We made this mess," Justin said, "and we'll set it right. It's not up to you, Maka. We put you in this situation and I'll be damned if I'll let anyone else take you out of it."

"Sounding grim up in here," Black Star's voice caroled from the door, Tsubaki close behind him and Kid hard on her heels; in their wake came five more people that Soul had never met: beside Black Star, a dark-skinned boy who looked ready for a fight but also ready, by virtue of his glasses and measured expression, to crack some serious books; a boy with thick glasses and a shaven head; immediately behind him a third boy, black hair done up in a spiky bun and looking like he wanted nothing more than murder; and two girls, hand in hand, one with pink hair and one dark as night.

"I hear you have a demon problem," said the pink haired girl, and presented herself to Soul with one hand outstretched. "I'm Kim, resident witch. This is Jackie. Kid said you needed assistance."

Soul took her hand and shook it, and found it weirdly comforting that _anyone_ could look determined in these circumstances. Maybe she didn't have the details. "Soul," he said, and nodded to the girl beside her, who also shook his hand. "Nice to meet you both. Thanks for offering to help."

They both shrugged. "This isn't the kind of thing we can let go," Jackie said, Kim nodding along, and they obligingly made room for the boys who had come in with them to come over.

"I'm Kilik," said the boy who'd come in with Black Star, and somehow that explained everything. "Star tagged me in and I'm ready and willing to kick every kind of supernatural ass you need kicked."

"I'm Ox," said the one with the glasses and shaved head, pushing Kilik aside. "I'm sorry to say it, but given the evidence we have, it's extremely likely that Medusa really _is_ possessed. It's just facts, especially considering the historical accounts -- "

"You _cannot_ seriously be considering documents from the Spanish Inquisition valid evidence," said the other boy, shaking his head and offering Soul a nod. "I'm Harvar. Ox and I are co-captains of the academic team. Maka thought we might have some useful information for you on this front, but I'm afraid I haven't exactly spent a lot of time studying the _Malleus Maleficarum_. Horrible stuff."

"No shit," said Kim, giving him the kind of intense side eye that Soul had, until that moment, thought didn't exist in reality.

Harvar blinked at her. "No offense," he said, and actually sketched a weird bow. "Just saying, there aren't too many legitimately academic resources on the topic."

They were all giving each other impressively unimpressed looks when Kid showed up, walking through the door in black slacks and a black t-shirt, silver skull rings gleaming as he interrupted every conversation simply by virtue of his _presence_.

"Sit," he said, voice mild, a considerate request that, to Soul's surprise, everyone obeyed, making room on the couches without a fuss.

After a minute in which everyone got comfortable, Kid finally just sighed, looking more grave than any teenager really should, and said, "We have a serious problem. My suggestion is that we spend the weekend trying to come up with some solution, and if we can't, or if it doesn't work, I'm taking this to my father."

"Your _father_ ," Star said immediately. "Who will do _what?_ Who is your daddy and what does he do, that this is the kind of thing you decide to take to him?"

Kid gave Star a look like he wanted to erase him from existence, pulled at his sleeves, and said, "It goes without saying that this does not leave this room, but: my father is a demon hunter, if that kind of gross simplification is allowable." A pause. "Certainly, if none of us is up to the task of personally, with our own hands, killing Medusa, we should probably just go ahead and tell him _now_ , so that we can avoid unnecessary fatalities and save ourselves some trouble."

"I think we should at least try," Tsubaki said, dark eyes troubled but jaw set in a grim line. "You're not the only one here with that sort of lineage, you know."

" _What_ ," said at least three people at the same time, and Tsubaki flushed.

"I'm not exactly supposed to _talk_ about it," she said, defiant.

"But your _brother,_ " Giriko said, agog, and the look she gave him made his mouth shut with a sharp snap.

"My brother," Tsubaki said with utmost dignity, "has claimed that he burned down your house at your behest, that you were all worshipping satan, that you were sacrificing a virgin to the dark lord himself and that the police only had to check a certain shed on your property for evidence. As there is no evidence, they have kept him in custody. I doubt he will be free again any time soon -- or even in this life, to be honest."

Black Star put his arm round her shoulders, but she didn't really need it.

"Regardless," she said, shoulders square, chin high, unbowed, "let's try to come up with something. It'll take time, though, so I suggest you all go outside and call your parents so we can at least pretend to be having a sleepover while we figure this out."

That resulted in everyone scattering, trying to find their own secluded space to convince parents to let them have some fun -- nah, not coed, no one was doing _anything_ sketchy, of course not. Maka called her father but didn't leave the couch and didn't shrug off Soul's arm where he'd rested it carefully over her shoulders.

"Hey, Papa," she said into her phone, artificially bright. "Just wanted to let you know that I'm staying over at Soul's with Kid and -- _no_ , Papa. We're just watching bad movies, I promise. Don't worry. Soul hasn't even seen _Pitch Perfect_ , can you believe it?"

Spirit seemed to accept this, and soon enough everyone was back in the living room, eyeing each other and the pile of notes Soul had pulled out of his backpack and the stack of books Kid had brought. 

"Just so we're all on the same page," Maka said, pulling out her phone and bringing up the picture she'd taken earlier, "all of you look at this."

 _That_ resulted in a lot of fun reactions, all somewhere along the general nausea end of the spectrum with the exceptions of Kid and Tsubaki, who just, somehow, looked even more like they thought the world might be ending.

"She isn't completely gone," Maka added, her smile a little sick. "She might be demon-possessed, but she's still definitely herself. She was singing Nicki Minaj's _Monster_ verse while she cracked his spine."

"And ate his brains, presumably," Kim added. "I'm gonna need some supplies. We can at least ward the house."

"I should have whatever you need in the car," Kid said, and Jackie got up when he did. "I already did what I could, but I'm sure you have more experience than I do."

"You did _what_ ," Soul said, but Kid only gave him a you-poor-sap kind of almost-smile before going outside with Jackie to dig through whatever arcane nonsense he had stowed away in his car.

"Ugh," he said, and now it was Maka patting _him_ on the shoulder.

"Let's look at these books," she said, and Soul sighed heavily, pulled out his notes, and got ready for a very long weekend.

===

In the end they decided on basically nothing. Between all of them, they had a lot of information, some practical and a lot theoretical, but not enough to really hatch an effective plan, and with multiple warring teenage factions in his living room, mostly everyone just argued. Medusa didn't show up, though, to Soul's immense relief and surprise, but they still slept in shifts despite Kid claiming that whatever he and Kim and Jackie had done to the house should have protected it from most anything. Ultimately, Sunday night found them all bickering over the same things they'd been arguing about the entire time, and eventually Kid just gave up; signed heavily and said, "I'm going to talk to my father," which shut everyone up and seemed to be their cue to disperse.

Except, naturally, for Justin and Giriko, who looked surly in lieu of looking awkward as he asked, "Can we stay here for now? I'm not in any hurry to go sit in a fancy hotel room with Medusa, and -- "

"My folks don't care where I am as long as they don't have to pay to feed me," Justin said with a shrug, and Soul and Maka pulled identical blank expressions of disgust.

"I guess that's fine," Soul said. "But you might want to -- I don't know, did you drive your car, Giriko? Maybe you should park it somewhere else, just in case."

"Good point," Giriko said and rolled his eyes when Maka looked absolutely appalled at the very sight of Giriko saying something vaguely complimentary. "I'll go leave it at the hotel. You cool to follow me, Justin?"

"Yup," he replied, already pulling on his too-big letter jacket and heading for the door. "We'll get some groceries while we're out to help make up for imposing."

Soul couldn't help but chuckle at the astonished look on Maka's face. 

"I'm not sure I've ever seen them act that civilized," she said in response, shaking her head. "It's practically one of the signs of the end of the world. Like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs. Anyway, I need to get home before my father has a coronary, all right? I'll see you at school tomorrow. Don't forget to act _normal_ around Medusa, okay? It's not like she _knows_ we watched her eat a man."

"Trust me," Soul said, walking her to the door, "I know. I don't want to be the next entry in her dark carnival buffet."

That made her pause halfway down the front steps and come back, looking visibly contrite for once. "Soul," she said, hesitant, then gave up and grabbed one of his hands in both of hers, looking a little odd scuffing combat boots like a nervous schoolgirl but also looking determined. "I'm sorry about this, really."

Soul shrugged because he was just so tired, and it wasn't even worth apologies any more. "It's not your fault," he said, giving her a weary smile despite the fact that the bags under his eyes felt cavernous. "It's not like you could ever have accounted for this sudden lane shift into total madness. Maybe in a normal world it would have just been silly, right? We could have filled her locker up with glitter or something, just to be obnoxious."

That got him enough of a shift in her face that, while it wasn't a smile, she at least looked vaguely positive. "Yeah, maybe we could have," she said, and squeezed his hand a little before seemingly realizing she was still holding it and letting go, the tips of her ears going a little red. "Anyway. Be careful, all right? We've gotta see this through without dying in the process."

"My main goal is to see this through without having to ever mention it to my parents," Soul said, and watched as she laughed, waved to him from the bottom of the steps, and got into her car. 

He stood in the doorway for a few minutes, considering whether or not he was going to have to enlist Justin's help retrieving the Mercedes, then decided that it was probably fine where it was in the parking deck. He didn't _recall_ any postings as to how long vehicles could stay.

In the end he headed back inside and showered, spent some time sitting under the hot spray trying and failing to achieve any kind of inner peace, and was watching _Teen Wolf_ with no enthusiasm whatsoever when Giriko and Justin showed up about an hour later with food and overnight bags.

"Can't we watch _X-Files_ instead?" Justin asked while Giriko tried to operate the stove with enough finesse to make more pizza rolls, and Soul shrugged and changed it over. He'd been meaning to watch it anyway; it was just akin to convincing himself to eat nutritionally viable food instead of living on hot pockets: obviously a better choice, but in practice not as fun somehow.

They got through two episodes and an ungodly number of pizza rolls before their phones collectively blew up.

===

"This is not a sleepover I ever expected to have," Soul muttered, supremely uncomfortable where he was sandwiched between Justin and Giriko in the front seat of the Blazer.

"You and me both," Giriko grumbled, shouldering Soul out of the way in his impatience to preemptively get his seatbelt off and be out of the vehicle as soon as possible once Justin parked.

On Soul's left, Justin made a supremely annoyed sound. "Hold the fuck _still_ ," he said, voice tight as he maneuvered the Blazer across a rickety bridge. "If you fuckin' knock me around and we end up driving into this river, I swear I will survive just so I can tan your fuckin' hide later."

Giriko growled a little under his breath but managed to locate his self-control and calm down, which allowed Soul to focus on how very nervous the bridge they were driving across made him. It turned out that Kid lived in the mountainous woods outside town, miles down a dirt road that completely justified his recommendation that they bring the most off-road capable vehicle they had available.

"Can't believe that fatass Volvo Maka drives didn't break this damn bridge," Justin said as they all breathed a collective sigh of relief at the end of said bridge. 

Giriko tried to shrug, but the Blazer slammed through a series of potholes at that moment that forcibly introduced his head to the roof, so any comment he'd had devolved into blistering invective. Thankfully it wasn't too much longer before they rounded hairpin turn number ten thousand and at last saw a house in the distance: a huge log cabin-style affair, modern but not tacky, with blessedly matching windows and exterior trim that seemed to be legit. Justin parked in the large gravel area to the side of the main drive along with all the other teenager cars, and Giriko was out and heading for the door almost before the Blazer had come to a full stop.

"Sorry you had to deal with him," Justin said, obviously meaning it but clearly not there to have a conversation, because he said it as he was getting out of the car and heading for the house himself. 

So Soul freed himself from the Blazer's horrible lap belt and dragged his stuff out of the back on his own, and by the time he got to the house there was already a distinctly bizarre scene playing out, largely because it seemed like most of their teachers were there, sipping drinks and waiting for all their little lost ducklings to show up -- though it seemed like Soul might have been the last one, from the looks of the room and its heavily occupied furniture.

"Hi, Soul!" Ms. Mjolnir said, waving to him from a behemoth of a leather wraparound couch, the steaming mug in her hand definitely holding something with a little more kick than coffee. Beside her was Mr. Stein, long legs sprawled, weird smile firmly in place; all around the huge coffee table seemed to be nearly everyone he knew from school except Maka -- who was sitting next to her father looking like she'd rather die than let him keep his arm round her shoulders.

"Um," he said, and handed his bag to -- Mifune? what was going on in the world -- so he could leave his shoes by the door. "Hi, Ms. Mjolnir. Why, uh -- "

Thankfully Soul wasn't left to try and figure out how to ask why the hell a bunch of his teachers were hanging out with his friend's demon hunter father, who was _supposed_ to be helping them deal with Medusa.

"Soul," Kid said, interrupting smoothly and giving him an understanding look. "How about we get everyone together and I can explain."

"Or I can!" chirped a voice so upbeat that it nearly gave Soul mental whiplash.

A look Soul had never seen before passed across Kid's face -- apprehension, tinged with the helpless stare native to teenagers whose parents are terminally uncool.

"Dad," he said. "Yeah, or you can." Kid turned towards the huge open kitchen that shared space with the equally huge living room, and made a vague gesture that came off more as 'please put me out of my misery' than 'let me introduce you to my father.'

Soul looked in the indicated direction -- and then looked _up_ , mouth gaping open ever so slightly.

"Hi!" said the huge _,_ gangly man who was apparently Kid's _father,_ except Soul hadn't thought that adults were allowed to have full-face skull tattoos and also have _jobs_. "I've heard a lot about you, and not just from Kid! Your parents have been _very_ communicative. Please, call me Morty. Or Mort if you _must._ "

"I," Soul said, and blinked in surprise when a glass of lemonade was pressed into his hands by the smiling man. "My _parents?_ Wait, are you -- "

"Kid didn't tell you? I'm the principal!" That came with a pat on the head that did absolutely nothing to make the entire situation feel less surreal. "I know you kids don't see me very often, but I _do_ exist! I just prefer to let Spirit and Azusa handle most of the face-to-face work. I'm sure you understand!"

Still in shock, Soul noted that the man's hands were _also_ covered in tattoos -- all of his exposed skin seemed to be, not that there was much of that: he wore a very nice, _very_ black suit. Even the handkerchief in his breast pocket was black, though it bore a tiny skull pattern that explained _everything_ about Kid's fashion sense.

"Oh," he said after several very slow seconds, and the principal gave him the single most fatherly smile he'd ever been on the receiving end of and shepherded him over to the couch.

"All right, everyone," Morty -- who called themselves _Morty_ , Soul could hardly even _associate_ his principal and a man who was apparently also a _demon hunter_ and had _skull tats_ on his _face_ with a name like that -- said, standing at the foot of a coffee table that looked like it could withstand a bomb strike. "Let's try to get this all explained as clearly as possible! Firstly, Soul, you've not met Spirit face-to-face, correct? I know you met Azusa because she subbed for your class the day before Mifune arrived -- she probably told you to call her Ms. Yumi. And Spirit is Maka's father, the vice principal."

Spirit offered Soul a scathing look that meant Maka had probably been talking about him at home, and Ms. Yumi, seated at the far end of the couch, offered him a nod and a small smile by way of greeting.

Introductions as over as they were going to get, Mort gave all of the teenagers present his best dad smile, the effect only _slightly_ destroyed by his incredibly creepy tattoos, and Soul had to admit he was impressed that even _with_ the tattoos he could manage such a comforting expression.

"Now, as you've all figured out by now, things've gone very awry with your friend Medusa," Mort began, hands pressed together in front of him, looking as though he were discussing tea. "And while we can all agree that what was done to get her to this point was ill-advised, I have to stress that most people in Giriko and Justin's position either don't live long enough to try and rectify their error, or never care to in the first place. Demons are very good at convincing people to do things, and even better at convincing them it was a great idea. They've done an extremely brave thing by trying to get some help before any more people got hurt.

"And all of you have done a great job! I've never seen a group of teenagers organize enough to pull together the resources y'all have," Morty continued, positively beaming at them -- which was, honestly, kind of nightmarish despite his obvious pride. "But the truth here is that Medusa's gotten very powerful very quickly, and everything I've seen thus far has led me to believe that we are in a very bad situation here -- that she's not just some run of the mill demonic presence that used a botched ceremony as a loophole but something extremely powerful and quite conniving. Things are escalating because over time the demon is eating into her personality, I'm sad to say. That she's kept up appearances this long is quite impressive! If we're lucky we'll be able to save her."

Soul did not miss the way Spirit's arm tightened round Maka's shoulders, or the way her expression turned stony.

"Um," Kim said, raising her hand a bit self-consciously, "Mister Mort? What are _we_ supposed to do?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," the principal said, holding his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. "Here I'm just rambling. As I believe Kid mentioned, I am a demon hunter, and a very well-thought of one at that! I and my staff, who you see in this room and know from school, came here because we'd caught wind of suspicious activity, but it turned out to be the kind of thing requiring a long-term solution. So here we are! I think we've done quite well by the school, honestly. I always wanted to work in education."

"Sir," said Azusa, glasses gleaming, expression stony, black suit possibly even _more_ neatly cut that her boss's, "time is of the essence."

"Yes," Mort said, nodding, expression settling into something somber. "Anyway. I have recalled some of my agents as of a few days ago when things got unexpectedly messy. Mifune I recalled ahead of schedule, but the others are here already, save for one who should be arriving later tonight. We are ready to take direct action and hopefully will have this settled in a few days. That said, you are all in danger at the moment, since Medusa is very literally losing the fight with her demon, so I've invited you all to my home so we can keep you safe until such time as things are set to rights again. And yes, I've cleared things up with your parents. Please do me a favor and don't phone home until everything is dealt with."

Soul blinked at Mort, then looked at Giriko, who shrugged; he tried to look at Maka, but she was doggedly ignoring everything in the room thanks to her father's apparent overprotective tendencies; looked at Kid, who just looked like he'd like to sink into the floor and never face the world again; and eventually shrugged and asked, "So where is the safe room, sir?"

That made Mort laugh even as Ms. Mjolnir stifled a snorting giggle and Mr. Stein indulged in a broad grin, all of which earned a sniff from Azusa. "Safe room sounds so dull," Mort said, but gestured to the long hallway that led off the living room nonetheless. "The entire lower level is 'safe,' if you will; safer even than the rest of the house, which is, might I add, incredibly heavily fortified! I think you'll find that the basement level is _quite_ to your liking. Kids, get downstairs please! Marie, Azusa, make sure everyone's on patrol. I only need Spirit to help me get the kids set up."

So they went, because what else were they supposed to do? As it turned out, though, the 'safe room' was actually more like every teenager's wet dream of an entertainment area, replete with game systems, a few pinball machines, a pool table, _two_ TVs, its own well-stocked kitchen, a library, multiple bedrooms -- "Sorry, dorm style bunks for you, kids, think of it as practice for college" -- and a large room Soul was startled to discover primarily because it was full of musical instruments.

Black Star, somehow miraculously quiet till now, was looking downright _smitten_. 

"This is the best thing I have ever seen in my life," he said, staring at a Ninja Warrior pinball machine. "Kid, I'm so sorry I ever doubted the facetious nonsense you spouted regarding your father. Can I marry into all this, or do you need more wooing?"

"Please shut up," Kid said, and went to ask his father a question. After a minute he called Maka over and they headed back upstairs while Mort and Spirit bopped into the kitchen and started a montage of chopping and prep work that Soul assumed precluded cooking.

"Almost dinner time!" Morty said when Tsubaki inquired. "By the way, Miss Nakatsukasa, have you got your family's sword here? If you do, you should bring it inside. I won't be upset."

Tsubaki flushed prettily and Black Star practically _lost his mind_ when she nodded, insisting on accompanying her outside to 'protect her from the darkness.'

Soul eventually got bored of watching Kid's father chop vegetables -- though good _lord,_ the man had knuckle tattoos that literally said _SPOOKY_ , bracketed by _skulls_ \-- and located Giriko and Justin rifling through a binder of video games by the larger of the televisions, though as it turned out they weren't even talking about games.

"Hey, man," Giriko said, for once looking nearly as tired as Justin. "You wanna know the stupidest thing? We're in this horrible situation and we might get eaten by a demon and it's my fault, but I'm really just bummed that we're gonna probably miss the winter talent show."

"Eh?" Soul cocked his head, confused; remembered belatedly that Giriko had a _band._ "Oh, were you actually going to play something? I was kind of under the impression that half the reason you decided to murder me was because I knew about your deep dark secret."

Justin made an amused noise while Giriko rolled his eyes. "Nah," he said. "It wasn't about the band. But yeah, we were gonna play something. Except what Giriko's forgotten is that even if we _could_ go to the talent show, with Masamune gone we can't even field a guitar player. Everyone knows a good metal band needs at least four people, so we were already pushing it with just three." He shrugged. "Nothing to do for it now."

"Pardon," Kid said, having apparently come back and sidled close enough to overhear without anyone noticing, "did you say you have a _band_ in need of a guitarist?"

Giriko looked vaguely ill. "Go away," he said, scowling through what Soul interpreted as -- stage fright? Something like it, anyway.

Now _Kid_ rolled his eyes. "Listen, Giriko, we're gonna be stuck down here for a couple days at least, let's not declare war immediately."

"We _were_ going to perform, you know," Justin said, blue eyes shrewd and laughing. "In front of the whole school. Don't know why you wanna keep up appearances _now_."

"God, _fine,_ " Giriko said, rubbing a hand over his face. "Justin and I had a metal cover band with Masamune. We were going to play a song at the talent show, but Masamune's been arrested and now we're stuck down here, so I guess _that_ dream is out the window like every damn thing else these days."

"How dramatic," Kid drawled. "Okay, here's a secret for a secret: I have a Youtube channel where I record mariachi covers of video game music. You need a guitarist? I can play guitar. In light of everything that's going on right now, I vote that we go get the music room set up and make some fuckin' _noise_."

"Mariachi covers of video game music," Giriko repeated dumbly while Justin snickered, and Soul would one hundred percent have stuck around to see that train wreck to its logical conclusion if the glint of light off metal hadn't caught his eye from across the room. 

"Hold up, does Maka have like ten swords over there," he said, and left post haste to investigate while Giriko was still looking like Kid had started speaking in tongues.

As it turned out, Maka did not have ten swords. She had: one replica Glamdring, one shitty katana, a few wooden swords, a straight razor with a _very_ nice pearl handle, some kind of probably seven inch combat knife, and a wooden baseball bat. Tsubaki stood beside her holding an _extremely good_ katana, if the scabbard and handle and the way she looked like a warrior princess just standing there holding it were anything to go by, and Black Star, again, looked like the entire world had lined up to grant his every wish.

"So why do we have a heap of weapons?" Soul asked, as Maka retrieved what he assumed was _her_ giant combat knife from the pile. 

"Well, we weren't really sure what kind of situation we were heading into," she said, clipping the knife onto her belt. "Better to go in armed with what you've got than totally barehanded."

Before he could respond, Kid's father's phone screeched out the Katamari Damacy theme song loud enough that half the room probably went deaf, because Mort very casually let it keep ringing while he wandered over to the sink and washed his hands before answering it with an upsettingly chipper "Yo!"

"Understood," he said after a minute, and headed for the stairs, all trace of his sunny disposition gone as though he'd never been anything but the man striding across the room: driven, grim, and obviously deadly.

"Kids," Spirit said when everyone started murmuring, and somehow managed to command enough respect despite his frilly pink apron that a room full of scared teenagers shut up and listened to him talk. "There's been contact out in the woods, so Mort's going to oversee things in case it's serious. I'm staying down here with you, and our rookie should be here any minute to help me out."

" _Rookie_ ," Star said immediately. "How do I get in on this action, Mister Vice Principal? I have found my true calling and I demand career counseling on the matter because I literally cannot allow Tsubaki to be this much more bode than I am, it's a disservice to her to have such an unequal partner."

"Stop trying to make bode happen, Star, what does that even _mean_ ," Maka yelled, at the same time that Spirit said, "Denied," his full attention already back on the food he was making, and Black Star huffed his way over to the pool table, yelling a challenge to Ox and Harvar as he went.

"I'm just," Soul said, a little overloaded, "I'm just gonna go set up some stuff in the music room for Giriko and Justin, I think. I need a break."

Maka looked at him like he'd grown an extra head. "I'm sorry, but what business do Giriko and Justin have in there? I'm pretty sure that even looking at an instrument would threaten Giriko's masculinity."

"Feel free to come with me and find out," he said, because he was too tired for any of this. Maka took him up on it; Tsubaki opted to join the pool game, and together Soul and Maka headed back to the music room to begin the process of tuning guitars and hooking up amps and figuring out just where the hell everything _was_ , anyway. It wasn't too long before Giriko, Justin, and Kid turned up as well, and pretty soon they had everything ready to go except for the fact that, faced with an audience of exactly two people, Giriko seemed entirely unwilling to actually play.

"It's not a big deal," Kid said, absently running through the music Giriko had pulled out of his backpack, fingers light on the guitar strings. "Soul's practically a professional musician and it's not like Maka and I are much different when it comes to this. If we're going to judge you for anything, it's going to be for things that are _completely_ unrelated to you playing drums, I promise."

"Well aren't _you_ fuckin' reassuring," Giriko said, and while he tried to sort himself out Soul and Maka wandered away from the performance area in favor of the half dozen or so actual chairs that had been set up a little ways back.

"Giriko," Soul called after a few more minutes of watching him bicker with Kid, who seemed to have picked up his guitar part pretty quickly, "this room _is_ soundproofed, you know. They won't be able to hear you thrash out there."

"And _again_ , we were _scheduled to perform this in front of the school_ ," Justin pointed out again, actually annoyed enough to emote something aside from exhaustion or faint humor. "I didn't learn to sing and play bass at the same time for you to chicken out _now_. What if Medusa eats us? We don't have time for this bullshit any more, dude."

" _Fine,_ " Giriko snapped, and Maka's eyebrows nearly hit the ceiling when he launched into a surprisingly competent -- and complicated -- drum part.

Kid picked it up pretty fast, and then Soul's jaw nearly hit the floor when Justin made it extremely clear that his voice had been made for fronting a metal band by performing the most screamingly well-executed cover of _Last Christmas_ that Soul had ever heard.

"I would have paid so much money to see them do this in santa hats at the talent show," Maka said when they stopped, and after a few seconds of silence and Giriko looking like he wanted to murder everyone in the room they remembered that they were an audience and managed some applause.

"Oh, stop that," Kid said, fiddling with his guitar. "We've never played together before, that was kind of a mess. If Giriko wasn't good at what he's doing we would have fallen apart ten times."

"But _Justin,_ " Soul said, still kind of in shock. "And _Last Christmas._ "

Kid glanced at Justin and shrugged. "True enough," he said, and Soul was treated to the bizarre sight of Justin and Giriko _both_ blushing.

Before things could get any more awkward they were interrupted by a knock on the door, followed almost immediately by a sight that took Soul at least three tries to take in fully. He kind of pieced everything together in chunks, because -- _because_. The first visual assault consisted of _tight_ black leather pants, leading into ridiculous combat boots; an all-leather fitted trenchcoat that looked like _Underworld_ and _Blade_ had compared fashion notes; a stupidly broad belt with seemingly no purpose other than holding what looked like a dozen ammo clips, because those pants were not coming off unless they were _cut_ off; and, finally -- a black t-shirt with a phonograph silkscreened onto it as a background for the words BRINGING SEXY BACH.

Oh. And also, somewhere in there, Soul realized he was looking at his _brother_ and promptly catapulted himself so far into denial that the earth being flat seemed reasonable.

"Please tell me that our parents aren't in on Wes Evans, _vampire hunter_ ," Soul finally said after what felt like ten thousand years of gaping open-mouthed at his brother while everyone else in the room got progressively more confused. "Please. Mom would die of shame."

Wes _pouted_ at him. "Excuse you, this outfit is _Gucci_ ," he said, cocking a hip and crossing his arms in defiance. 

"Not literally," Soul said, regaining some modicum of mental stability. "Gucci wouldn't touch that with a flamethrower."

"Didn't you say your brother was some kind of world-famous fiddle player?" Giriko asked from his post at the drum set, and Wes's head swiveled, homing in on him with an immediacy and focus that Soul hadn't been aware he possessed in areas that didn't involve music. 

" _Fiddle_ ," Wes said, and opted to go the condescending smile route instead of the murder route, for which Soul was grateful. "When I'm done protecting you from literal evil, I will explain to you _in detail_ the differences between a _proper violin_ and a _fiddle._ "

"Don't bother," Giriko said. "I ain't about havin' douchebag fancy-ass hotshots tell me why I'm wrong over bullshit details that aren't important, let alone explain to my apparently uneducated ass why folk music isn't as _important_ as shit that's been dead and written for hundreds of years."

That made Wes's smile falter into something more sincere, which had the unfortunate side effect of making Maka glance between them a few times, aghast, and say, "Oh my god, he _is_ your brother. You make that _exact_ face when things go horribly wrong."

"The weird pseudo albinism wasn't your first clue?" Soul muttered, trying not to slouch under the weight of his pure hatred of the world and everything in it.

Justin and Kid shared a look of mutual exasperation while Soul reflected that Giriko's musical knowledge should come as no surprise if he was competent enough to make very viable metal versions of shit like _Last Christmas_ , and while Justin went to put a presumably calming hand on Giriko's shoulder Kid somehow managed to address the entire room when he said, "Please find some chill, guys."

"Yeah look the important question here is _Weston Rhys Evans, why the fuck are you dressed like a leather daddy vampire hunter with horrible taste in puns_ , followed by _what the fuck are you doing here?_ " Soul said, still flabbergasted by his brother's appearance on both a literal and figurative level.

Wes managed to make running a hand through his hair look petulant. "Mort called me in. He said that I've reached a point in my training where I need practical field experience, and he knew I'd appreciate the chance to see you and help keep you safe, little bro. What's wrong with my clothes? We watched all the _Underworld_ movies together, I'd have thought this would be logical for _you_ at least."

"Oh my god, it's _genetic,_ " Maka said in a horrified whisper that almost dissolved into laughter.

"Your _training,_ " Soul said, doing his best to ignore the fact that Justin and Giriko were also snickering in the background. "How long has this been going on?"

Wes gave him the worst smile in the history of the _world_. "Can't tell you, I'm afraid," he said loftily and with a lot of pretentious hand-waving. "That's top secret."

"I'm at risk for literally being eaten by a demon and _that_ is top secret," Soul said.

"I don't make the rules, Soul, I just have to follow them so I don't get kicked out while I'm still a trainee," Wes said, and this time he sounded like he meant it, so Soul let it slide. "Anyway, we're going to be here for a while, so how about I make it up to your friends -- whom you still haven't introduced to me, by the way -- and relieve their vocalist of his bass so he can concentrate on what he needs to be doing? Everyone knows that a decent metal band needs at least four people."

Giriko kind of looked like he'd swallowed an entire hive of wasps, but Justin seemed relieved so he declined to voice his protests.

Wes had just accepted the bass from Justin and was testing its tune when a herd of panicky teenagers crashed through the door, nearly bowling Soul over in the process and _all yelling_.

_"There's something upstairs -- "_

_"The VP ran away and the food's on fire -- "_

_"Help -- "_

All commentary regarding his clothing choices and demeanor aside, Soul was impressed when Wes stayed calm in the face of a crowd of yelling people. He set the guitar down and told everyone to stay calm and _quiet_ , emphasis his, and headed for the door with an expression like he didn't plan on surviving whatever experience he was heading into.

Kid followed him, looking more _determined_ than _fatalistic_ , and Soul realized suddenly that Kid had probably had a great deal of training. After a moment's hesitation, Soul headed for the door as well, Maka behind him.

"Hold up," Wes said, blocking the door. "You can't even defend yourself, Soul, I don't want you out in this."

"She's going to go after one of us," Maka said, elbowing Soul in the ribs until he moved out of her way so she could face Wes down face-to-face. "Me or him. That's why she's here. I don't want to sit in a room full of my friends waiting for her to come for me. I don't want them to die just because they had the bad luck to be close to me."

"I ain't waiting back here while some Blade wannabe saves my ass," Giriko growled from immediately behind Soul, and Wes made a face like he wanted to strangle literally _everyone_.

"It's _all genetics,_ " Maka whispered to herself. "This is _fascinating._ "

There was a series of violent crashes from upstairs, as though Mort's entire giant couch had been thrown across the room with extreme prejudice, and Wes vacated whatever weird argument they were having in favor of running to the stairs, down which something was currently falling.

And by some _thing_ , Soul realized, he meant some _one:_ in a groaning heap at the base of the stairs was Spirit, red hair bloodied, too disoriented to get back on his feet but straining towards something at the top of the stairs.

Which was, of course, Medusa.

"That's so _ratchet,_ " she shrieked, cackling like a banshee drunk on power and teenage hormones.

" _Fuck,_ " Wes spat, hands a blur as he tried to make sure Spirit wasn't dying and unhook something from his belt at the same time. "Go, back the fuck _up,_ " he said maybe two seconds later as he threw something up the stairs, face as desperate as Soul had ever seen it -- and he'd seen the dude make eyes at a Stradivarius.

The shriek that accompanied whatever Wes had thrown finding its mark made Soul's vision blur, but it did buy them enough time for Giriko and Justin to grab Maka's father and haul him out of the immediate line of fire under Wes's direction.

"That's not gonna buy us much time," Wes said, trying to set up what Soul presumed was a ward on the doorway to the stairs. "Get Spirit's radio, what the hell is going _on_ , she shouldn't _be_ here -- Mort specifically went out there to deal with _her_ , so what took out half our operatives?"

Kid already had Spirit's earpiece out. "Father and Tezca are reporting that what they thought was her out in the woods was actually a werewolf," he said, pale eyes on the door. "That new boy, Free. Seems she reaped enough power from the murders that she was able to summon herself a minion, and a strong one at that. They're en route back to the house, but running him down took them quite far afield. We're to hold her off until they make it back."

"Papa's concussed," Maka said from where she was kneeling beside her father. "I don't know if he's going to be getting back up anytime soon, and I think his arm might be broken."

"That ward isn't going to hold," Kid said, so deadpan that he was actually starting to rival Medusa for scariest thing in the house. 

"Get the fuck away from the door," Wes said, shooing them all away. "Get off to the sides, don't bunch up. I'm going to do what I can, but this thing's not loaded for demons."

He had a gun in his hands -- a combat shotgun, Soul thought over the roaring in his ears that he guessed was probably adrenaline. Tsubaki was there, her katana unsheathed and hard to even look at for all the power in it, plain for even untrained teenagers to see, Black Star beside her with a grim look on his face and the baseball bat in his hands. For whatever reason Justin had collected the straight razor and, to Soul's vague surprise, Ox and Harvar were there too, arguing over weaponry.

"Put that weeb shit away, it's cheap and useless," Ox was saying, the replica Glamdring in his hands and making an annoyed face at Harvar's choice of the -- admittedly and obviously -- shitty katana.

"The fuck's it matter, we're all gonna -- "

Medusa caromed into Wes's ward with all the subtlety of a brick through a window, hooked sharp nails into something that flickered in the air and _shredded_ it so she could step through like a conquering monarch.

"Bet you thought you'd seen the last of _me_ , bitches," she said, bloodstained and grinning, mouth full of shark teeth. "Giriko, _brother_ , how good to see you here. This is your last chance to gift me Soul's beating heart, boy." Her smile grew wider, hungrier. "If you don't, I'll be keeping you and your _bro_ to use as a palate cleanser once I'm done with the main course."

Kid, still standing beside Spirit, said something in a language that Soul couldn't even comprehend the _sound_ of -- but Medusa flinched and snarled at him, spewing profanity until she got herself back under control. 

"We gonna do it like this, loser? Make it a war of attrition where you try to slow me down with buckshot and words of power that you don't have the balls to back up so that I have to eat your friends in front of you just to show you who's the baddest bitch in the room? It's amateur hour in here and I know it. I left all the big boys running in circles or half dead in the woods."

Wes brought the shotgun to bear and Medusa twisted, serpentine; divested him of the gun with a blurring backhand that sent it skittering into the stairwell and dropped him to the floor with a kick that almost certainly dislocated his kneecap.

"Boy," she said, all hungry rage and contempt, "Evans boy, by the smell of you. Thanks for volunteering to be my appetizer, despair is my _favorite_ sauce." The room at large received a cold look. "And if any of you come at me -- Tsubaki if you _move_ \-- I'll tear out his throat. So that's the deal. We can do this the easy way and you can let me leave with Soul and Maka, or we can do this the hard way and I will kill every person here. What's it gonna be?"

"I'm going," Soul said before anyone could do anything else stupid that was like to get their asses killed. He wouldn't exactly say he was freaking out, because it felt like he'd been freaking out for about a month straight, but there was a certain something to volunteering to let someone lead you to your death that did weird things to one's stomach and perception of reality and the implications of mortality.

Maka stood from where she'd stayed crouched next to her injured father when Medusa motioned Soul over so she could get a good grip on him.

"Go fuck yourself with a small cactus," she said, the vitriol palpable enough that for a few seconds Soul was more or less convinced that Maka was actually the badder of the two bitches currently engaged in this conflict, but then she stepped over Spirit and let Medusa take hold of her without putting up a fight and the illusion was destroyed.

"Mm," Medusa said, and gave her a filthy look that made Soul realize with a distinct sense of nausea that her eyes were slitted now. "You'd like to see that, I imagine."

"I will vomit on your shoes," Maka said, looking like she really might and also like she really wanted to.

"If you throw up on my Gucci pumps, I am going to end you in the slowest, most painful way possible," Medusa said cheerfully as she dragged them up the stairs. "Now say goodbye to your friends and your daddy, you won't be seeing them again."

Maka, in response, said something so vulgar that Soul managed to be taken aback even as Medusa dragged them up the stairs and across Mort's house, sidestepping the obliterated corpse of his once-nice couch.

"Now, darlings," Medusa said, taking a moment to kick Mort's back door halfway across his property, "we're gonna go somewhere with a little privacy. Remember when we were in Girl Scouts, Maka? Remember how great it was, getting lost in the woods?"

"Remember how you used to be my friend instead of an insane murdering bag of dicks," Maka said, tone as faux-cheerful as Medusa's, and honestly that was the thing that was upsetting Soul the most about the whole marching-to-his-death situation at hand.

"Remember when I used to be a pathetic loser?" Medusa countered, dragging them across the back porch. "Well guess what, hater -- I stopped moping around waiting for someone to save my ass and I _saved it myself_. Fuck Girl Scouts, they just wanted us to be homemakers anyway."

"Hey, Medusa," Maka said, brightening as if she'd suddenly had a thought. "You know what my favorite part of Girl Scouts was?"

"The time where the troop tried to kick you out for being such a loser?" Medusa asked, and Maka responded with a tittering laugh that made Soul's hair stand on end.

"Nah, bitch," she said, smile turning vicious. "Remember that time I threw you in the lake because you framed me for all that basic-ass shit you pulled? _That_ was my favorite."

Medusa started to laugh and Maka pivoted, seamlessly swinging around with as much momentum as she could muster in a somewhat awkward position, and punched her ex-best friend square in the throat.

 _That_ got Medusa's attention, and she let go of both of them so she could grab at her neck and make a strangled noise that sounded like a prelude to violent death -- 

At which point Maka threw her in Mort's pool.

" _Run,_ " Maka yelled at him, and they both promptly turned tail and took the fuck off.

Unfortunately, Medusa was no longer a normal human, and they didn't get very far before she tackled Maka to the ground, snarling and soaking wet as they rolled across Mort's back yard.

"Who the fuck do you think you _are,_ " Medusa screeched point-blank in Maka's face, and Soul noted with some detached, probably moderately suicidal, part of his brain that her teeth weren't sharp any more. "You're _nothing!_ Unpopular, mousy, nerdy little _Maka_ , who only cares about being a drum major and reading books so big no boy's dick will ever measure up!"

"Big talk, _Tyfyny Mareigh Gorgon_ ," Maka howled back, green eyes bright even in the washed-out light provided by the full moon, and Soul kind of bent double trying not to laugh at the least appropriate moment in history at the way she said Medusa's full name so that you could hear _every last pretentious 'y'_ as she elbowed Medusa square in the tits _._ "You're just jealous that my Papa _loves_ me! You're just _jealous_ because nerdy little _Maka_ doesn't live in the worst trailer park in town! You _always_ took my toys and broke my shit and now you're going to _kill a boy_ just to make me suffer so you can _feel better about your own shitty life!_ "

" _Bitch I just got voted Snowflake Queen, I could NEVER be jealous of YOU!_ I'm _popular_ , Maka! I _matter!_ Do you even know what that's _like?"_

They'd devolved into hair-pulling, name-calling, scratch-biting _chaos_. Soul didn't even know what to _do_. He didn't have a weapon, and he had the distinct impression that if he distracted Medusa from the fight she was currently engaged in she was going to stop thinking she was a teenage girl and go back to thinking she was a demon, in which case _he'd_ go back to being her main course.

As it turned out, he didn't need to do _anything_ : Maka remembered that she was, in fact, in a life-or-death situation before Medusa did, and also that she had a giant honking _knife_ , and put two and two together in a predictable way. Soul could pinpoint the moment that she started looking for an opening, started trying to figure out where to strike while still yelling incredibly personal insults, and felt hope flare up in his otherwise very unsettled belly.

"Guess who just got named lead drum major for the winter competition," Maka said, a horribly vindictive smile on her face, and Medusa made a noise like a wet cat on speed.

" _USURPER!_ " She howled, rearing back, and Maka buried all seven inches of her silver-gilt combat knife in the juncture of her shoulder and neck.

" _Maka!_ " screamed a familiar voice, and while Medusa was still throwing herself away from Maka and convulsing round the knife that may or may not have hit her jugular, Tsubaki sprinted over, katana in hand and looking _extremely_ disinclined to let Medusa make any more demands.

Most everyone else came running not far behind her, and Soul just -- sat down in the grass and shook a little bit, then made a face when he realized that Giriko had, apparently, detoured back to the Blazer to grab Justin's old-ass chainsaw.

"You know chainsaws are the worst melee weapon maybe of all time," he said conversationally, and Giriko didn't even bother glaring. He just set the chainsaw down when it became apparent that Tsubaki was going to literally tear Medusa a new one if she moved too much, grinned, and helped Soul stand back up.

Meanwhile, Ox still had Glamdring and Harvar still had that horrible katana and Black Star was pretty much howling at the moon he was so excited, and somewhere in there Mort ran over and shooed everyone away so he could get Medusa properly restrained.

"Gonna have to leave your knife there for now, I'm afraid," he said, lifting Medusa's now-somnolent form bridal style, "but good job! That's a great location if you're not trying to kill her right away. With any luck we'll be able to exorcise her without any lasting damage."

Maka managed a weak smile, but she was covered in her best friend's blood and had some serious bite marks when it came down to it, so Mort very gently steered her towards Soul and told him to get her into the house, where he'd find his brother, Spirit, and someone to get them all patched up.

"So did you know your father, uh," Soul asked while he was helping Maka limp back to the house, "...did this?"

"I knew he worked in some covert agency, but nobody told me about _this_ ," Maka said, an arm around his shoulders and leaning on him so heavily he really might as well have been carrying her. "Unlike Kid's father, apparently." She sighed. "I guess I understand. It's not the best thing to grow up with. I hope he's okay, though."

"Mort didn't seem worried," Soul said, and helped her up the porch steps. "Thanks for saving my ass, though."

"Well," Maka said, "someone had to."


	5. Epilogue

"So then I said 'who here has felt personally victimized by Medusa Gorgon," Giriko said, gesturing hugely with a turkey drumstick nearly as massive as his bicep. "And everybody raised their hands, because she was _horrible_ to us, and we finally got our shit together and got the weapons and ran outside to save your asses."

"They did not need saving," Tsubaki said, sipping her water. "But nonetheless, that _is_ what he said."

Medusa, propped at the end of the 'kids' table' in a wheelchair and a nest of cushions, managed a sigh. "I know it wasn't my _fault_ ," she said, "but I _am_ sorry for all that."

"I'm sorry I stabbed you," Maka said, and shrugged. "Still, it all worked out in the end."

Soul glanced behind him at the adults' table, where Spirit and all of his colleagues including Mort were carrying on over wine and a turkey, and shuddered. "Well, except for the part where your father is shacking up with my _brother._ "

"Who knew he was into that -- what'd you say?" Kid mused. "Leather daddy bondage vampire hunter getup?"

"Not while I'm _eating,_ " Black Star yelled, and Kid laughed into his mashed potatoes. "It is _Thanksgiving,_ and that kind of talk is _exactly_ what I am _not_ thankful for."

"I know he's making you want to crawl into a hole and die," Justin said, and just cocked an eyebrow when Giriko threw an arm over his shoulders, "but _I,_ for one, am thankful for your brother, Soul. He's gone and gotten us a music deal."

"God, yes," Giriko said, the most heartfelt thing Soul had ever heard him say. "We can get out of this goddamn town. The greatest gift anyone could ever get."

Kid lifted his glass their way, looking downright indulgent. "You're also welcome for my father allowing you to stay with us while your house is being rebuilt," he said. "You know, to save your family some expense. And Justin's, I guess," he added, "but they kicked you out so they can eat an entire bag of dicks."

"Word," Black Star said, and they toasted to _that_ with gusto. "And _guys_ , Mr. Albarn is _totally_ gonna train me in this demon hunter business so I made an app but I don't know what to name it -- should it be StakedIn or StakeOut?"

Soul very slowly pressed his face into his palm; Maka threw a spoonful of peas at Black Star and then made a covert reach for Soul's free hand under the table that somehow made the nonsense Star was still spouting bearable.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank everyone on my Resbang server and all my betas profusely, you caught all kinds of nonsense when my brain was too numb to realize it was there. More than anything I'd like to thank my artist, Eisschirmchen, for being hilarious, putting up with me talking her ear off, and rolling with all the weird shit that went down in this story. Also time zones. We are nine hours apart and she still did a ton of work and talked to me on the regular and she is basically the human embodiment of the 100 emoji.
> 
> Thanks for sticking around till the end!


End file.
